I am a memory hoarder.

Being in your 20s is special because for the first time in your life, you start to have memories that span over a decade.  When you’re ten years old and younger, ‘the past ten years’ is all you know.  They’re not memories; they’re just your life.  In your teens, ‘the past ten years’ include your childhood, but in a way, you still feel like a child, so it’s not really valid to say things like, “I remember this one time when I was a kid…”  Plus, you’re probably trying desperately to define yourself as an individual, so anything that you associate with childhood is ‘uncool.’  Now, in your 20’s, you have memories of your childhood, high school, and college.  You’ve actually known people for ten years or more.  You actually know and embrace nostalgia.  It feels good talking to other twenty-somethings about things like that episode of Rocko’s Modern Life when they made Wacky Delly or about Dunk-a-roos, Caprisun, and Fruit by the Foot.  It’s like you’ll never really forget those things because you have a collaborative memory with your generation, and especially with the internet, pop culture references are just a YouTube search away.

But what about memories that weren’t so universal?  What about the ones that were specific to your experiences as a child, as a member of your family, and as a resident of your hometown?  When I was a preteen, I saved everything.  It was almost as if I knew that they would spark a world of memories for me ten years later.  Maybe that episode of Full House when Danny, Jesse, and Joey dug up a time capsule from their childhood really got to me.   Who knows, but I have SO much stuff.  From high school, I mostly just have my photo albums and year books, but from grade school, I have AOL chat conversations printed out, original song lyrics from my aspiring popstar days, photo albums, *NSYNC and O-Town memorabilia (this is an understatement), journals, report cards, phone books, posters, gel pens, old seashells, and so much more.  I even have a year’s worth of printouts of Z100’s Weekly Top 40:

Why I printed them out every week for a year is beyond me.  I have all of these things though, and I can name a story for everything.  Why did I keep them all these years?  And why is it mentally exhausting having to let all of it go?  I think I’m just a memory hoarder.  Yesterday, I caught myself using a word that for years has been forbidden from my everyday vocabulary — regret.  I said to myself, But what if in five years I regret throwing this away?  That word is a super red flag for me.  It just screams out that there is something there that I don’t feel complete with.

As I move out of this house, I fear that my memories of it and of my childhood are going to become hazy.  I feel like I’m losing a part of myself because my childhood is a part of me… Isn’t it?  Those adolescent years were clearly something I’ve tried to preserve for as long as I could.  It was a time when my job title was #1 *NSYNC fanatic.  A time when we treated sleepovers like it was a trip to Vegas; we looked forward to it all week.  It was a time when I wore a uniform 200 days out of the year.  A time when we didn’t even know what ‘organic food’ meant.  A time when the only schedule I knew was the after school Nickelodeon shows announced by Stick Stickly.  I didn’t care about winning the lottery, but I did want that free trip to the Universal Studios in Orlando Florida, so I could meet Tommy Pickles and Doug Funnie.

This was also a time in my life when my family was the most complete it could be under one household.  Five of us at the dinner table.  My pop reading home entertainment magazines in bed.  My older brother barging into my room, like he was Buzz from Home Alone.  My eldest brother cracking up at Chris Farley in the family room that housed one of our two TV’s.  My mom on the phone as she smoked a cigarette and cooked dinner.  When I leave next week, it will just be my pop here until he sells the house.  Obviously, a lot has happened since the 90s and early 2000s, so this sounds much more dramatic than it really is.  My brothers have long since moved out, and my mother passed away eight years ago.  Once I leave, my part in the story of our house will be over, too.  If I throw away all of the keepsakes from my adolescence, will I still be able to tell my story?  Or am I just afraid of getting old?  Is that what’s really going on here?  Sooner or later, I’ll have another decade under my sleeve.  How will I try to preserve, then, THREE decades to memory?  One of my greatest fears has got to be losing my memory and not being able to tell stories about my parents to my children one day.  This is a crazy fear, I know, but I think that’s why I’ve been holding on so tightly to these memories.  It is bizarre though, being afraid of losing your memory at 23 years old.

I was with a group  of friends the other day, and we were talking about this idea of letting go.  Someone suggested taking pictures of everything before I throw them out, but another friend chimed in, “But then you’re living through artificial memories of what used to be.”  The memory is inorganic.  It’s like using cheat sheets.  I really have to let go, and trust that that beautiful time in my life, before my mom passed away, is living out in my life right now, just in a different form.  Ten years ago, my nephews, my boyfriend, and some of my dearest friends weren’t in my life.  It’s like my mom just reincarnated her love in all of these people for me and for me to share with the world.  Why try to hold on to these THINGS (because that’s all they are) when I could be giving it back to the world instead?

In Bikram yoga, we are often taught to breathe in all that’s good and positive in the world, and breathe out everything in our body that doesn’t serve us.  This stuff that I’ve collected is not serving its purpose anymore.  I’m just attaching the memories that I already have to them.  This is going to be a whole new chapter in my life.  It’s time to exhale and make room for all things new and inviting.

 *NSYNC posters that I finally parted ways with after graduating college.

 A seashell that I can’t recall the origin of but I can remember the weight and the texture perfectly.

Follow my move on twitter: #livelifemoveout

This Thing Called Moving

I’m moving to the Bay Area, California in one month, and just as I have been avoiding packing up my life into boxes and planning out my trip, I have been avoiding this post.  I’ve been avoiding it because writing about it will force me to face reality.  I’ve got one month to move out of the house that I grew up in — pack up what I want to bring and throw out the rest.  I’ve got one month to say bye to all of my friends who I grew up with and all of my relatives who will soon be far away.  I’ve got one month to help prepare the house for when my pop is ready to sell it sometime later this year.  Where do I even begin?  Oh, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, I haven’t got the first clue about moving.

I could sit here all day and list reasons why I don’t want to leave my house… I actually did list them but deleted what I came up with because I realize that’s not what this post is about.  This post is about me admitting that I’m scared.  I’m scared of the unknown.  I’m scared of moving in with someone, even though it’s my boyfriend — the only person I’d ever consider moving in with.  I’m scared of my decision; is this ‘the right decision?’  I’m scared that I’m going to end up hating it.  I’m even scared that I might come across an old memory as I’m packing, which will cause me to breakdown and cry and regret this decision wholeheartedly.

But… This post is also about me coming to terms with my fears.  I’m scared, but I’m doing it anyway.

What happened to all the reasons I had for MAKING this decision in the first place?  Getting away from NJ winters, being surrounded by the great outdoors, living near my nephews as they grow up, etc.  What about all the times I told myself, You will never know until you try… Your family’s got your back… You can always come back to NJ… Why do they all get thrown out the window when the time actually comes to ‘make moves?’ (pun intended) This is the classic case of me settling back into my comfort zone and allowing my fears to make excuses for me.

I met with a few of my former co-workers last week, and we caught up over drinks and french fries.  I told them that my boyfriend and I set the date for our move: May 10th.  One of them, who is now one of my closest friends, said, “Izzy, you have the most integrity out of anyone I know.  Whenever you say you’re going to do something, you fucking do it.”  Damn, that’s a lot of pressure.  Now I have to go through with this whole moving thing.  I blatantly told them, “Honestly, I’m really scared.”  The thought had been manifesting itself in my head, and now it was alive in my words.  I felt relieved to just say it, but then I started to let it get to me.  I started picking fights with my boyfriend, getting defensive when asked about my move, refusing to write about what was going on, and so on.  Of course, then I felt bad for not doing the things that I’m ‘supposed to be’ doing instead, like actually packing, getting rid of stuff, mapping out our road trip, planning get togethers with people, researching Bay Area rent and cost of living, and whatever else people who move do.  I was also getting comfortable in the fact that I ‘didn’t know how to move,’ so I was just avoiding it altogether, but with thirty-one days left before our move out date, I can only avoid the process for so long.

A few weeks ago, my pop said at the dinner table, “It will be sad pulling out of the driveway for the last time.”  I tried to just ignore him because I didn’t want to think about leaving for good.  Obviously, our house has a lot of sentimental value.

It’s 4:30pm right now, and it’s 82 degrees outside — the hottest day of the year so far.  I’ve been in my kitchen trying to put my fears into words for the past three hours, while my pop just stepped outside to enjoy the weather from a bench in the park in front of our house.  I won’t have many opportunities to join him anymore.  What am I still doing at this computer?