streams of living water...: Boxes

My closet is empty.
My dresser is empty save for two pairs of clothes.
My books are sitting in boxes.
I have yet to take my pictures down from the wall.

Am I really packing up again?

Strangely enough, this packing feels like I'm leaving Colombia all over again. No, I'm not nearly as attached to this room in Busey-Evans as I was to my home in Colombia. No, I'm not leaving my family, most of my friends and moving to a place where I know no one. No, I'm not moving to a different continent. No, no, no.

But, not unlike leaving Colombia, everything I own, after I leave U of I this week, will be in boxes or suitcases again. I'm not simply packing up my "college stuff" and bringing it back to a room where my "other stuff" is; my college stuff, for the most part, happens to be my stuff. I'll be back to living out of a suitcase for a couple of months before I move back down to Champaign to live elsewhere and unpack again-- creating a space of my own in the fall.

And there's that odd sense of knowing that I'll never be living in this room again. I probably won't (though I can't say for sure) live with Ty or Chrissy again. I won't walk down the hallway and stop by Karissa and Calen's room anymore. And that's just a really strange thought.

For the last two years, my entire college existence has happened from this room, with these people as core. I sometimes forget how the way we take in the world is so spatially and geographically influenced, but leaving this room is reminding me. Yes, next fall will feel quite different.

And so, in a sense... as I pack, I pack with farewells in my mind and goodbyes in my heart. I pack knowing that this concludes a short instance, a brief chapter. What has become so familiar will quickly become a memory and I'll fall right back into my familiar routine of transitioning and adjusting.