Throwing

I haven't written much lately thanks to all the hassles I have created myself to my mind and some of them have presented themselves around this time of the year - goodbyes. I don't intend  to talk much about the latter since I know it would take me hours to ramble about this particular subject, especially when I am so much so in fact attached to this place.

I ended this series of uneasy thoughts yesterday by starting my packing. Well, my parents won't be here for another 3 weeks, but I know when they are here it's not going to be a happy packing.

I started with boxes. I had kept a lot of boxes (if not all the boxes), from Amazon books, stuff I'd bought from eBay, from mom, etc. I tend to keep them all until the end of each year, and I will start giving them away to the recycle bins, except for those mom sent me. This year, I gave away all, even those from mom. Memories are not measured by the physical items you are keeping and holding on to, but by how much these little trivial things mean to you. I let them all out, and am getting ready to start a new turn at this place - an MSc (if I ever graduate) - a tad closer to the working life.

Then I went through a small bag of little paper items. These are bits of me from my travels, job opportunities, cards from others and cards to them, etc. Surely, a lot of things are in the bag and mounting up year by year, but the bag has never grown as fast as when I first started it. Less and less people are closely attached to me, yet certain people never leave.

- There are always traces to a certain person in the big city, and although she did promised to buy me birthday presents, I've never received any apart from those little "bánh su" - you know who you are ha!

- There are also traces to my international close friends.

- There are many things from my/our annual visits to/from my "prettiest friend".

- And there is mom. She's always there, through thick and thin, through arguments with her about job prospects or about my ex-ex-ex-ex-...-N girlfriends. I did find myself extremely annoyed at her at times and grew greatly defensive when the argument started about my "long long history". But again, she's still there, sending me Christmas gifts and cards (though most of them are just more pressure to my already heavy life). And thank you mom for talking to me as well as pulling me out (occasionally) because you really see through me and know what/who I would like at the end.