Empty

It has been done, the end of an era has come, a new age has started. Today was the day of the big move. My dad and I broke down all furniture, packed the last bits of junk and cleaned up my old home, erasing the last traces of my occupation of the room. 'It must be a strange feeling' people keep saying. I guess it should be, but it's still more of an idea than a feeling. When standing in the empty room the only thing going through my mind was: 'it looks the same as when I moved in. Did I actually live here for 4 years?' The only thing feeling weird is that when I want to go to Groningen again I have to remember that I have to actually arrange a place to sleep. Probably it will hit in harder when the other thing that is more an idea than a feeling, actually moving to England, will become reality in no more than 5 days.

One of the last activities of the great move was going through my memory drawer. Readers who were appalled by the sentimental undertone of my previous post may skip this section. My natural memory is not one to brag about. Actually at some times it's not even worth mentioning. Both short as long term could use some improvement, so I would remember a name 5 seconds after somebody introduced himself, important deadlines or apointments or details about past events. To help with the latter I have my Memory Drawer, the container of photos, cards, letters, tickets and even receipts and other random tokens of events in my life that could be noteworthy to remember. And once in a while I get to dig through all of it to select what is still really important to me and, moreover, to relive it all.

There are photos of the beginning of highschool, of old friends who I haven't seen or spoken for ages, of the journeys I have made. Things go back to primary school, like pictures of our old house in Gorinchem, a very interesting story about human colonisation of the solar system and evil martians and a diary kept during the hamster mating experiment with Liselotte, the girl I shared a crib with about 25 years ago. Other things I loved to see again were letters of my best friend from primary school from just after we moved to the other side of the country, the envelope with women's underwear of my 'secret admirer', the report of the trip to Rome in the 6th year of high school. And finally of course the letters, cards and other little things from old romances, some even challenging the Ilias or the Elements in volume and content. Even though these bygones are bygone, it is still fun to reminisce, relive great times and review life lessons, for instance that the definition of 'always' is rather blurry. All in all, memories have taken up a significant part of the packing time, making it more than just putting stuff into boxes.

So now everything is out of Groningen and ready for a new life, including myself. I will return there one more time to take care of the last formalities and meetings with friends and sisters and then it's off to the other side of the North sea. New year has never been this new. Even though there are things missing that I would have given a lot for to have with me to share the transition of years with, or even the whole new year, it will be exciting enough and maybe even top the wonderful year that has just passed.