Life in those 16 boxes

Moving on is a big game changer in everyones life. Some move on in mind and some in space. Although as much you try to quantify the two, there never will be a clear winner. 

But then, life does move on. 

With another episode in action, my life decided to move on both mentally and physically. Mentally of the people of heart, and physically to the land of so called opportunities, Amedicah! (Pun intended)

Hence for all, the first step to moving places is boxing things up. As much as I allowed myself to be generous in giving away most of the belongings I possessed, I wrapped everything special I ever have in those 16 boxes.

Might as well highlight the disproportions caused in the mind when life goes all robotic. Hence this time I chose to segregate all my belongings by myself rather than relying on some movers and packers touching my valuable things and dumping them irrationally into their boxes.

There is a whole life of 40 years enclosed and parceled to a space unknown, unguarded. Safe for sure, but metaphorically speaking, I am the rightful owner and guardian of all these boxes. If it hadn't been 16, and just any other number, I wouldnt have bothered to pen this down. But then there is something about 16. 

Remember the time when we were 16. Well nothing great happened, it was just a number with a lot of youth infused and an enormous heart that felt and thought like never will it ever again. Bah! Those blushful days.

Likewise these boxes hold the most of me in the best of me. Over the years, I picked up the best of events and sealed them in ways I would want to remember forever. Not that an object can identify the moment for me, it's just my way of being grateful.

Ofcourse there are plenty of meaningless things one can gather, and I have got them too. There's a box of books, so precious and so noted down in an excel sheet, cannot escape a missing one. My box of clothes includes the precious sarees and jackets that still smell of an olden time, the period that looked like fun now. There is love of my little one closed down in the form of her first written letters, drawings and mispelt words to her mommy. Her first nappy wrapped in a cloth with her birth hairs. Sounds kinda creepy, but when I opened that box after 12 years while cleaning things up, it felt so special. It was just a flash of memory, a sensation of moment when I first touched my new born daughter.

There are stories, of tshirts worn and torn, still hard to be parted from. Some smelling of the intense love that happened in the elixir of youth. Memories of whom one doesnt even want to forget. Then there are a dozen gifts, big and small, gifted by the ones who loved you. Even though now I may find their love to be trodden, yet going back to the time of its peak, that beholds a special place. 

There is more than a lovers crap captured in those sixteen boxes. The very first poem and that artwork which inspired me to be what I am now. The verses of literate laureates, recited and written multiple times to etch in the mind.

A whole lot of photographs. The true memorabilia of life, not just mine, bit of those before me and those after. 

And then there are friendships, encapsulated in the form of letters, of complaints and that of first heartbreaks, first jobs, first salary and first whatnots. It doesnt settle in here for most of life in 40 years is encircled by these tender moments.

Marking the end of one most important phase of my life, which will now turn into a memory. The transition is priceless. From where I stand, this will make the most beautiful memory ready to be boxed in future.