Last
At a certain stage in life one begins to note more endings and closures than beginnings. The natural course of aging takes us through passages of experience so as we grow older we must move forward leaving behind us things we no longer need or are interested in as well as things we no longer are able to do. When we are young we welcome this as part of our maturing process. I vividly recall waking up one morning, at age twelve, deciding I no longer enjoyed playing with dolls. With pragmatic resolution I gathered and boxed up my odd assortment, walked next door and offered them to my neighbor’s six year old daughter, to her delight. Even at age twelve I knew some things must be done for the last time so there’s no use waffling, just do it. Life goes on. It ebbs and flows and the only constant is change. Sometimes we know when we’ve done something for the last time and sometimes these pinnacle moments simply fade into oblivion, completely unnoticed.
But I believe some moments of passing should be noted as they occur rather than later in retrospect because it establishes a clear perspective about the true continuum. For example, there comes a time when you just know in your heart that the move you are about to make is very likely your last. As I was emptying out kitchen cabinets today, sorting, deciding what to toss and what to tuck into bubble wrap, this hit me–we are moving to our last house. Some of the things I am putting into the boxes marked, “glassware to basement” I realized I may never open or see again because I purposely designed the new kitchen to be functional with no place for unnecessary things to sit and gather dust. I’m ready to purge and simplify so I’m okay with this concept with one exception–my mugs. There I was, clicking along making instant decisions about what to keep, what to store, what to put in the Goodwill box, doing okay until I got to my mug cabinet.
I’m not a collector of things in general but I have amassed a rather large accumulation of coffee mugs from special events and travels to distant places in years past. I didn’t particularly set out to collect mugs but things sometimes just collect themselves. This hodgepodge required an entire cabinet of four full shelves. As I began pulling them out, big and small, I started having flashbacks. Soon I was swept up in a sentimental journey back in time. Touching each one took me to the exact moment I came to own it. Some go all the way back to my young child rearing days, an Indian Nation 1979 PowWow mug from Sean’s Cub Scout years, a Walt Disney World mug from Rachel’s 1978 Camp Fire spring trip, a mug with delicately scribbled art from pre-school-aged Holly, and then the ones painted by grandkids from many years later, Hayes, Olivia and Parker. Even these are aged now. Many have been successfully moved (no chips) numerous times over the past thirty-plus years but this final collection has been sitting in this cabinet for the past eleven years, each one holding tightly to its own unique memories. Nevertheless, all of these now must go into storage. No cabinet for them to sit in for another decade at the new house.
This was the realization that gave me pause. I once was quick and resolute to move on from things that I had outgrown, like my beloved dolls, because I had other things waiting to be tried and the promises of life in the making to cash in on.
I think, so long as the mugs sat undisturbed in their appointed shelves, I didn’t have to consider their existence or that they were there, already more or less stored. Day in, day out, they were just there, getting older, like me. But now that I have to put them away, out of sight, out of mind, wrapped and warehoused, relegated as unusable, it’s like saying this is a more poignant kind of last and I find I have to work my way through it. So now, here I am, most of the promises all spent, purposefully putting into exile these ceramic relics of so many special moments of my life. I am above all a realist, I can see no reason for me to ever again open either of the two boxes that will hold them. And since these represent my memories, I don’t expect anyone else will care to. I can’t bring myself to give them to Goodwill so I have to set aside my logic and practicality and leave this exception for someone else to deal with someday.
I know I’ll be okay tomorrow, when the boxes are out in the garage with the other boxes waiting to be moved to the last place they will all be together. Life really does go on. More memories are waiting to be made, and will occur even without collecting new mugs to commemorate them. But for today, I’ve had to stop, acknowledge this rite of passage, take in a ragged breath, knowing something real is concluding, and even though something new is also beginning, something that once had tangible value to me will soon be simply no longer touchable.
I found one mug that I can’t recall where it came from. It sports a cheeky quote, “This is the first day of the old part of my life.” I laughed out loud when I read it and then I thought, yeah, it should say, “this is the first day of the last part of my life.”
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