On unpacking:

I have finally unpack the last box of my belongings that i shipped back from London one year ago. Exactly one year ago. Perhaps it was an unconscious effort to maintain some links to a past that no longer exist. I have not really thought about it. The box just sit outside in my garage untouched, unnoticed for the past year.

I unpacked programs from all the plays/musicals/shows that i had watched, textbooks, files, notes, articles i needed for my thesis, thesis interviews, ornaments, books i had bought from flea markets and bookshops (modern fiction, romance, poetry, penguin classics that cost only �1, russian novels, autobiographies), travel guidebooks (sweden, germany, belgium, spain, ireland, greece), tupperwarez, clothes pegs, wash bag, cloths i had used to cover my stereo and tv, an old tape recorder, bottles, and one year old tabloid papers i used to buffer my books with. All covered in a fine layer of dust.

These things had reminded me of the times i spent in London. Some of these aren't even mine, but leftovers from my boyfriend when he left a year before me. I remembered the plays and musicals that i have watched, and some that i had already forgotten. Remembered last summer when i was writing my thesis, pouring over my notes, articles and interviews, trying to finish up and meeting the deadline. Remember my schedule i had written with the crayons i got free from pizza hut on when i should finished my revisions and thesis. I recalled the various tupperwarez and clothes pegs left behind from my boyfriend which i had not touched since i last saw them at his place in Aylesbury. Remembered the tabloids i would buy weekly to obtained the tv schedule which came with it for free. The books i bought from fleamarkets and waterstones to read during winter nights when i felt lonely so that i don't have to always watch the tv. All the travel guidebooks i browsed through thinking then that i would make those trips before i graduate, which of course i didn't. A washbag still in its original covering because i bought one too many. An old tape recorder of my boyfriend who used it once to tape our discussion about his final year degree show in the middle of the night as he felt that what we were discussing were useful for him during his exams and that his memory was too short to remember everything verbatim.

Now all are unpacked and sorted into respective places in my room. When will i ever have the chance of looking at them and thinking back of my days before? Will i gaze upon my book of poetry as i walk past the shelf and remember? Will i ever take down those collection of programs and recollect? Now they are all sitting in my room together with my "present time" things, slowly being assimilated with things that did not belong in or belong to London. They too will become "present". I am glad for a chance to sit down with all those belongings and give them the attention that i should have long ago. It was not a conscious effort to do so as it was a necessity to clear away the "eye sore" before my parents came home. But nonetheless i am happy to spend some time with my past before the objects and memories go down to a place when they will no longer be so readily available.

When they were in their boxes, i know i can always open it up and have the memories pop right infront of me. But now, all the boxes are gone, I guess like all things, we can only contain our past for so long before every thing becomes the present and the past gets left further and further behind. No more unpacking to do. Everything is in its place. I guess we all have to move on.
Some day.