Un-Packing

As I unpack yet another box, my hands wrap around another piece of an old lover, long since gone from my life.

"You move a lot" My sister's voice echoes through my head.

Yes, I think , I have to move a lot. It's the only way to shake them lose, to pry them out of my life, so that all that is left is a fragment of the "We" that used to be "Us".

Maybe they were only a part of me for a week, a month, a day. But with the unwrapping of paper and bubble wrap, there is another piece of him, or him, or oh yes… I remember him. I realize I only keep the fragments that remind me of happier times. Of times before I got mad, or bored or simply lost interest. The trinkets hold the shiny fascination that they, themselves, can not hold onto over time.

So a new house, a new life, old memories. I look around and see that my chatchkies are simply pieces of them that have lingered. Or maybe it is simply the pieces that I can tolerate. Who really knows the inner workings of a mad-woman's mind.