12 months in reflection

This same time last year, I was looking at things I’ve accumulated in my apartment. Trying to figure out what was going back with me and what would be left behind, to be scattered among my friends. Red futon goes to Andrew, cream futon and blue chair to Skye and Stephen, drawers to my successor, and tomato plants to Asuka. The things I decided to take, I hauled at Ariel’s place in my 60 liter backpack. It took eight trips to fill a one cubic feet cardboard box.

Ariel offered to drive my stuff to her place, but I insisted on transporting them myself. I wanted to carry them. Slowly. I wanted to feel the weight of my possession. The way I’ve done since I was twelve. The first bag I carried was a red duffle bag. My brother helped me dragged it across Hong Kong’s airport. Before we departed, my mother forced her hands through the metal fence that separated us from her; she clung to the strap of my bag and my brother’s black backpack. When I was fifteen, I carried that same duffle bag. I walked and walked. Every step assuring me that I was heading for safety. Everything I owned stuffed in that bag, this time without my brother to help me.

Moving. Belongings. I don’t acquire only because I don’t like parting. If I buy a glass, I would want to relocate with it. Leaving it means leaving a piece of me. There’s only so much of my heart, what’s left is mine—mine to keep.

A lover told me once that he didn’t know me after three years. The imbalanced of information bothered him--the lightness unbearable. I couldn’t tell him that if I share, I would take all the pieces of me back, peel the skin where I've written.

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