Packing Woes

Sitting on my floor in the midst of boxes waiting to be packed, the only thing I can think of is how in the world I managed to accumulate this much junk. My closet, for one, looks like it's been the recent victim of a bomb. I've unearthed clothes, shoes, and purses from its murky depths that I don't remember purchasing or ever wearing for that matter. I have never once considered myself a pack rat of any sort; however, I am finding t-shirts that boast dates like 1997 and 2000. I definitely do not wear the same size clothing I wore as a hyper active six year old nor do I recall what the event advertised on the shirt is. Thus, the piece of clothing holds no sentimental value, but it has lived in the bottom of my drawer folded in a perfect rectangle for fourteen years. Now, this is strange because in those fourteen years, I've moved twice, not including moving to and from college twice a year for the last two years. As the painful thought of moving into a new apartment in the 100 degree Texas heat dilutes my sanity, I have convinced myself that my clothing multiplies exponentially. (My mother would argue that I have a mild addiction to t-shirts. My best friend would second this argument as she unpacked all my shirts moving into my apartment last year.) 

While I'm harping about clothing... 

I'm an only child. Over the course of 20 years, I've been the sole subject of my parents' photographing skills (or lack thereof). We have album after album of vacations to this place or that. Somehow, a great number of these albums seem to have their way onto my desk. As I've mentioned before I possess an avid talent for procrastination, so logically, I sat down and looked through all of them instead of packing my life into boxes. This is what I noticed. 

1) Toddlers rarely make attractive faces. I think I mastered every face in the book that makes me seem mentally unstable. Heaven forbid, I smile like a normal child. 

2) The rare times I did, in fact, smile like a normal child and not like a sugar-induced maniac, my clothing choices took all the attention away from my smiling face. This is through no one's fault but my own. I've always been an independent, opinionated person. After all, I am my mother's daughter. I wore what I wanted, and my mother gave me the freedom to dress myself. 20 years later looking back on the photos, I wonder how she had the patience or pure courage to take me out in public. A series of pictures that look to be taken over the course of a week or two have me in red cowboy boots, hot pink biker shorts straight from the 80s (a decade I didn't even live in, mind you), a multi-colored, printed swimsuit, and a tutu. This fashion-forward look, of course, came right after the Barney phase, in which I would only wear clothing depicting the affable, purple dinosaur. 

See, I eventually brought the post back around to the clothing topic I started with, only to go off in a completely different direction. 

Why is it so unbelievably difficult to find the edge of clear packing tape? Also, why, once you find it, is it impossible to pull a decent piece the first time? I've gone through about a yard and a half of clear packing tape picking helplessly at the corners. 

Alice is lucky she never had to pack. She had the good sense to fall into a hole instead. I'm debating going to find a hole like that, but apparently, we have a neighborhood bobcat that lives behind our house. I'm not a "nature" person, so I'll have to find an indoor hole somewhere. Anyway, that's what they never told you. That's the real reason Alice decided to chase a time-obsessed rabbit in a coat. She was avoiding packing. I'm not entirely concerned with how realistic that sounds. In fact, Lewis Carroll encourages thinking of six impossible things before breakfast. It's breakfast somewhere, and cereal sounds really good right about now.