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seperation anxiety in the midst of summer

 

 

 

my dearest, most beloved reader

 

welcome to another biweekly check-in from your favorite amateur blogger!

it's been a warm 14 days. it's been lively, it's been parisian.

 

the first important takeaway (which i haven't taken away yet, i will pull it from this story as i go along) comes from quite the mundane monday morning activity. i am sorting out my clothes.

i may have only moved here a little while back, but contextually, i moved with every single thing i own. meaning every item and relic that has collected dust in my storage unit over the last two years of solo travel, every piece of clothing i have potentially grown out of.

i had quite the field day rediscovering the colorful skirts, ribbons, scarves and belts, and the extensive collection of tops now stuffed into my small ikea closet.

i tried wearing them again, but with time i am realizing that certain things belong to a past version of myself, one whose skin i can no longer slip into.

so i am selling them all, in the hopes that someone else can include them in their new chapter of life.

it feels strange to let things go. even things as small and seemingly insignificant as clothes.

 

i packed up a puma shirt i wore when i moved into my first shared apartment in hamburg, when i was 18. the color has faded, the logo is beginning to peel off, but someone bought it regardless.

i sold a green headscarf i wore on a date with my ex-girlfriend. a date on which, for a change, we did not fight. it feels warm for that reason, i think. warm for being something that preserved peace, not chaos.

i even separated from the pillsbury sweater i bought in a charity shop in minnesota, in my junior year of high school. it was 4$. for the next two years i barely wore anything else. i can remember all the character-shaping things i went through in that time. all the things it has seen. the first day of school after winter break, the first time my therapist told me i may have depression, the first snow and the first flowers in spring. the things we hold dear can hold such tender truths.

 

i wonder sometimes, what the places we live in and the clothes hugging our bodies could say if they had the power to. what would my bedroom ceiling think after all it has seen? would it scold me for not trying harder? or hold my hand for all the nights i spent alone, wishing i hadn't been?

how much of our energy is absorbed into our surroundings? how much of the weight do they hold by becoming our comfort, our safety net?

 

seemingly and logically, none

but in thinking about it, and to get back to right now, i have not felt such safety and protection anywhere and in any space as i feel since moving here, into my room with the big window, with all my books and all my shoes, and the posters i am slowly but surely sticking all over the walls. it is becoming more and more colorful, and warmer with every ounce of me it gains. and i'm finding no urge to hop, skip and jump to the next city to cleanse my mental palette. i am finding fewer and fewer reasons to run. i am finding less and less joy in being anywhere else but here. in a place that is finally starting to feel like mine.

 

so to come back to my clothes: letting go of things we connect to past versions of ourselves can be very hard. and simultaneously gives us room to breathe. room for our current self to expand and reinvent themselves. and as much as i am not in need of a new persona, it does feel pretty damn good to evolve.

 

i for one now have a lot more closet space. and with time, maybe the new me will find things to fill it with. maybe a pair of polka dot pants. or a green coat for when the fall finally comes and i get to layer things again. like shirts. or the different nuances of my personality.

 

the song of the week is shapeshifter by lorde

 

sending you love, my dearest reader

hugs, kiki