Moving.

Sorted, organised, boxed, sealed and labelled; our things ready to come with us on the next adventure in our lives. The old and broken are committed to disposal to the displeasure of our nostalgia. From simple things like a foot high plastic Christmas tree that we have convinced ourselves we will never use again, to old and torn t-shirts, jumpers and jeans  that will be donated and forgotten. Years from now we will look back on old photos and see a couple smiling in front of a tourist attraction, draped in the same clothes whose style will have since been allocated to a decade that will make us cringe. We look forward to it.

It’s a strange feeling that we have, seeing our belongings gutted and compressed liked this. The logical part of the brain says there is nothing here. Nothing only things that were manufactured in a factory in some part of the world, sold in a shop half a world away and eventually hoarded in our home another half a world away. But the emotional side of the brain has attached a memory and a feeling to each piece of cutlery, each old shoe and each bottle of never-worn-before-nostril-invading aftershave. What should stay and what should go? Logic versus emotion? It’s a careful balancing act.

We stand in the doorway, holding each other, after taking one last look at the empty rooms we had filled with life for so long. It’s time to move out and move on.