Love Among the Ruins

If I take one more step, I am quite sure that I shall collapse into a crumpled heap of fatigue. I am halfway through the formidable task of unpacking and reassembling my room. When did I amass enough possessions to fill four giant boxes, two enormous suitcases and an adorable carry-on, not to mention the very full bedroom that I left in Bim to begin with? Now I have to unpack, stack, arrange, squeeze, balance and store items until my room looks somewhat presentable. A girl must have her orgies in a clean and clutter-free room after all. I can’t have the other swingers being told that I can’t keep my bedroom looking decent…

So far the task has been reasonably successful. I managed to unpack, sort and shelve most of my many, many, many books. Some of my bags, shoes and clothes have been settled in place. But I have quite a way to go indeed. At this point, I’m just placing items randomly around the house until I find somewhere to put them eventually. Hence, all my cds are stacked on the dryer and assorted items are scattered on the floor at odd intervals throughout the house. My parents are becoming awfully adept at side-stepping high-heeled shoes, Ghanaian carvings and bubbled-wrapped crockery. My mother has taken a particular liking to the bubble wrap with the very large bubbles and delighted herself today by popping them loudly and at length until I begged her to stop. I shall have my work cut out for me tomorrow because I am determined to have a respectable room by Monday. Let the orgies begin!

The best part, or rather the least evil part, of being forced to go through my belongings with a fine-toothed comb is that I come across the most interesting things sometimes. Today for instance, I discovered my hair-dryer that I lost a good 5+ years ago. Still works too.

But a lot more fun to look through was … the envelope. The envelope contains *drum roll please* most of the love-letters that I have ever received, from 1st form to quite recently. I promised myself that I would always keep them, in order to take that occasional stroll down memory lane. I kept that promise for the most part but some of them were just too painful to keep and found themselves, in crumpled shreds no less, in the landfill. But today I laughed gleefully as I reread the words that had been addressed to me so many years ago. From the “tick this box if you would be my girlfriend” to the anonymous deliveries from friends with instructions to meet admirers at a designated places where they would reveal their identities. I smiled at the poetry from my young Shakespeares and sighed over written apologies for infidelities.

Young love is charming indeed. I remember how very painful and complicated it seemed back then. Pity that it became significantly more painful and complicated as I grew older. I raise my glass to the days of trying to figure out who wrote “Your hair looks beautiful today and so do you.” Cheers to teenage romance! May I always remember my love-notes and their gallant authors.

Hmmm, wonder what I will find among things my tomorrow…