Pack Up Your Troubles

Packing. I even hate writing the word. If I had a penny for every time I had started a list with the word 'Packing,' before tossing the list aside to  do something I would normally never even contemplate, such as knitting or bird watching, I would at least be able to buy myself a new suitcase. Having been to boarding school for 2 years as well as alternating between divorced parents from a young age, packing should as a result be second nature to me. Admittedly, boarding school did give me a valuable life skill in teaching me the wondrous technique of rolling ALL of your clothes to a small spring roll size, thus allowing you to fit double the clothes in, a useful party trick for impressing all of your friends. However the point is that packing has to be one of the most odious, boring, tedious tasks in the world, aside from watching paint dry and explaining to your granny what twerking is.


How do you fit your whole entire life into one measly 15 kg suitcase (Ryanair I'm looking at you)? Packing becomes an x factor of all of your possessions, with only the best  reaching the final round  ( debatable re: x factor). I've started to think that choosing what you are going to pack for the first time is the equivalent to choosing what kind of experience you are going to have in your destination, what kind of person you want to come across as and perhaps also what you want to come back with. I, for example, heartily dismissing the thought that I would need a single jumper, stuffed my suitcase full of summer clothes that I could no longer fit into, in the vain hope that on my arrival to Spain the sun would suddenly burn off my Christmas fat and I would magically fit into them all. I also packed my tennis racket, despite not having had lessons since I was 5, as well as an unhealthy amount of notebooks in the hope of becoming a famous author overnight, imagining myself surreptitiously sipping coffee outside a cafe in the sun and scribbling ferociously, which show how I wanted to learn new skills on my year abroad that I would never get around to starting in my normal life.


Perhaps more telling are the things you don't pack, whether it be a conscious decision or a subliminal act. Without wanting to sound too typical-girl-ish, consciously not packing photos that featured my recent ex-boyfriend actually helped the getting-over-him process, decluttering both my mind as well as my suitcase. Just like that, packing becomes a way of clearing your emotional baggage too (oh my gosh I'm so sorry I just couldn't resist!). The act of not packing something, whether it be a childhood toy, cigarettes, your ipad or even your makeup allows you to mentally step away and start afresh without them. Yes, you could just buy more makeup and cigarettes in duty-free, but the very act of not packing these things you wanted to escape from in the first place at least displays a desire to change or experience a different way of life to the one your are accustomed, and the first step to achieving whatever it is you want your year abroad to be for you.


By not packing these things you also leave space for the countless new things that you will accumulate throughout your year abroad (though still have not worked out what to do with bongo drum bought impulsively in Morrocco). I think I might adopt the catchy new saying of 'like suitcase, like mind,' whereby I shall try and leave space in my head for all of the new things I accumulate in Spain, and leave the thoughts that wont be useful in my room at home, probably under a cat. Looking at packing in this light makes it a much more exciting task!