The one problem with being a packrat is that you have to remember. You save cards and pictures and notebooks, and eventually, if you ever decide to sift through all of the junk that's been saved over all of the years, you see your life. From a bird's eye view, your perspective forever altered by the time that has passed, you look at your own face, read your own handwriting, wonder who you were and who you've become.
I just sorted through a box of pictures and cards, some of the items saved for more than nine years. I have cards from people I don't remember, friendly gestures offered up by people whose names ring no bells in my mind. I have cards from people I remember well, people who were closer to me than I ever thought possible at the time.
Four years ago, before moving away to college, my best friends from high school gave me a series of cards, each filled with heartfelt goodbyes, swearing that we would never lose touch, that we would be friends forever. We had planned where we were going to buy three houses, right in a row so that our children would be best friends and we would always have one another.
I don't talk to those friends. I haven't talked to them in more than two years, and I haven't been close to them in more than three years.
The worst part: I don't miss them. And for the importance of their roles in my life, I probably should.
