spending time in preparation

I’ve packed up my life too many times to count, or even remember. Bags and boxes have become a permanent fixture in my house, or wherever my home happens to be at the moment. I used to get frustrated with losing things that were important to me, only to find that the distance of a few months or years made them lose their value completely.

Now I only have a handful of prized possessions, and even then I’d gladly let them burn because they’re so easily replaceable. I wouldn’t mind losing my old diaries, or photographs, or the many hard drives I’ve written stories on over the years. I’ve already lost some of them, but from those losses I’ve learned to always reinvent myself, keep things fresh, even at the risk of forgetting. It’s because I figure that the things worth remembering will stay salient in my mind (or at least on the Internet). And too often I would slip into the trap of relying on my past self too much for ideas or adventures.

Maybe those artifacts will become precious to me when I can no longer live the life I’m living, when I’m old and tired and adventured out, when I have to live vicariously through the self I remember being, and even then through things remembered for me since my memory will have faded. But for now, I’ll put aside material things and continue to write those stories that my frail, forgetful old self will read and enjoy and repeat and repeat and repeat…

That’s how you live forever, you know.