![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vinceconawayMy mother never knows how to shop for me. Our taste in clothing is totally incompatible, and since I moved away after high school she has no idea what my tastes are, much less what I already own. Complicating issues further is the fact that, as a reasonably successful and rather impatient person, if I want something I tend to buy it for myself.
But she knows I travel, both for work and for pleasure, and so seven years ago she bought me a set of matched luggage for Christmas. Grown up baggage. It was perfect, a spectacularly successful gift, so much so that two years later she forgot and gave me another set. But the first always held a special place in my heart.
This was helped by the fact that it was both better looking and sturdier than the second set. It was very solidly built, in a tasteful forest green that my mom mentioned would help me pick it out as mine on the conveyor belt at baggage claim. The second was a more military shade of green, with pieces having flimsier walls and collapsible sides. When my ex-wife asked for one of the sets of luggage in our divorce, that's the one I gave to her.
But the other set has been with me for years, and looks it. The forest green is a lot darker than it once was, residue of dozens of flights sticking to the walls. They've come thousands of miles with me, as a group and individually. The zippers are shot; one bag cannot close the last three inches lest the zipper go off its track, and most of the flaps have been torn so that I need to use fingernails to pry them open or shut. The wheels are shaking on cracked axles, and the plastic protecting the corners is worn and frayed.
I've needed to replace them for years, and I've known it. At the end of every trip to Europe I tell myself that the next will be in different bags, but when the time comes to take that trip I can't bear to replace them. Until now. When a friend of mine had a last-minute packing problem I sent her off with my carry-on bag, letting her know that I never intend to see it again. Because it was holding things that I need to pack to leave Massachusetts tomorrow I had to replace it, and while I was replacing that bag I might as well replace the one a size larger at the same time. This was as intended, to force myself to buy something new and better.
It worked. I had a lovely time at TJ Maxx sorting through bags, testing stride length versus handle length (I trip sometimes when I'm walking quickly and run over my heels), and seeing which bags could best hold a box of CDs while leaving enough room for clothing while I'm on busking trips. I love one of my new bags, and the other is quite serviceable. But now comes the hard part; leaving the old one behind.
One bag is miles and miles away by now, and the process happened so quickly that I had no time for regrets. But now it's time to throw away an old friend, a longtime traveling companion. There's no room in my life for dead weight, and it's certainly time to move on. But when I look at it, emptied of belongings and filled with other members of my life's discard pile, all I can see is the way it sat open in hotel rooms across the world. The moves between Italian cities, flights to the corners of North America, and many miles tucked in the back of my car, of the van, of my life.
But now is the time for letting go, for shutting faulty zippers one last time and averting my eyes as I walk away.
But she knows I travel, both for work and for pleasure, and so seven years ago she bought me a set of matched luggage for Christmas. Grown up baggage. It was perfect, a spectacularly successful gift, so much so that two years later she forgot and gave me another set. But the first always held a special place in my heart.
This was helped by the fact that it was both better looking and sturdier than the second set. It was very solidly built, in a tasteful forest green that my mom mentioned would help me pick it out as mine on the conveyor belt at baggage claim. The second was a more military shade of green, with pieces having flimsier walls and collapsible sides. When my ex-wife asked for one of the sets of luggage in our divorce, that's the one I gave to her.
But the other set has been with me for years, and looks it. The forest green is a lot darker than it once was, residue of dozens of flights sticking to the walls. They've come thousands of miles with me, as a group and individually. The zippers are shot; one bag cannot close the last three inches lest the zipper go off its track, and most of the flaps have been torn so that I need to use fingernails to pry them open or shut. The wheels are shaking on cracked axles, and the plastic protecting the corners is worn and frayed.
I've needed to replace them for years, and I've known it. At the end of every trip to Europe I tell myself that the next will be in different bags, but when the time comes to take that trip I can't bear to replace them. Until now. When a friend of mine had a last-minute packing problem I sent her off with my carry-on bag, letting her know that I never intend to see it again. Because it was holding things that I need to pack to leave Massachusetts tomorrow I had to replace it, and while I was replacing that bag I might as well replace the one a size larger at the same time. This was as intended, to force myself to buy something new and better.
It worked. I had a lovely time at TJ Maxx sorting through bags, testing stride length versus handle length (I trip sometimes when I'm walking quickly and run over my heels), and seeing which bags could best hold a box of CDs while leaving enough room for clothing while I'm on busking trips. I love one of my new bags, and the other is quite serviceable. But now comes the hard part; leaving the old one behind.
One bag is miles and miles away by now, and the process happened so quickly that I had no time for regrets. But now it's time to throw away an old friend, a longtime traveling companion. There's no room in my life for dead weight, and it's certainly time to move on. But when I look at it, emptied of belongings and filled with other members of my life's discard pile, all I can see is the way it sat open in hotel rooms across the world. The moves between Italian cities, flights to the corners of North America, and many miles tucked in the back of my car, of the van, of my life.
But now is the time for letting go, for shutting faulty zippers one last time and averting my eyes as I walk away.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
HA!
Date: 2008-10-21 11:54 am (UTC)Re: HA!
Date: 2008-10-21 11:57 am (UTC)Luggage
Date: 2008-10-24 01:58 pm (UTC)It's a waiting game.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-26 04:49 pm (UTC)In lives so well travelled, I find it very telling how we hold onto even the slighest semblances of familiarity.