Always have, always will.
So it should come as no surprise that one of the first things I do when I move to a new place, even before all the boxes are unpacked, is start laying out picture collages on the floor.
My father, ever the photo journalist, captured one such humidity-and-exhaustion-soaked moment 2 years ago this week as I settled in Baltimore.
I love this part of the process. It centers me and settles me, to acquaint myself with my new floor, surrounded by old friends, familiar faces that have followed me on my journey. After the craziness of moving, my little introvert self is thankful for the chance to absorb the quiet, to reflect, to remember, to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, to make this new place my own.
But as I finally had the "aha" moment and found the perfect place for one little piece of artwork this evening (it has been sitting, homeless, on my desk for weeks), I realize that I have also come to love the change. The paintings and posters and picture frames that call my walls home have found their way to a plethora of different walls over the years - and have hung side-by-side a vast array of different objects. And though they have remained unchanged over the years, they look different each time I put them up. The light hits them from a new angle. The walls behind them highlight their vibrant colors in a new way. The pieces they are now paired with bring out parts of them I'd never noticed before.
I love how there is change in the constancy. I love how you can look at something a million times and not really see it until you look at it that million-and-first time. I love how everything eventually finds its place - sometimes where we least expect it to.
And isn't this true in life in general? We bring the same set of strengths and weaknesses to each table we encounter - the same personality quirks - the same set of baggage. The older I get and the further I travel, the more I am dismayed to find out that I am the same person wherever I wander. Somehow, even though I attempt to leave it behind, my storage unit full of complexities and idiosyncrasies and selfishness and fears finds its way into each new town I call my home.
But there's hope. There are fresh starts. There are new circumstances and new relationships and new walls to decorate. The light falls differently and offers a new perspective. Weaknesses become strengths. Fears become motivators. Shadows are chased away by sunbeams. They are not bound by their former identities. They have been redefined in the present. And sure, we cannot change the past or its long-lasting effects on us. And we lean, depend, feed on our hope for the future. But the fact of the matter remains: we only have this moment. We only have the present.
In the year before I left for Baltimore, my dear soul sister and I would, at times (OK, often), find ourselves overwhelmed by life. There were days when we gave up on words and just laughed. And there were days when we gave up on words and just cried. And amidst fits of giggles and streams of tears, our mantra became, "It is what it is." And for us, at the time, I think it meant "I'll take the hand I'm dealt; it's out of my control anyway." "I will accept this reality and trust that it's not forever."
Shortly before I left for graduate school, I found a little wooden sign that said just that: "it is what it is." So off it went with me to Baltimore. And every morning, as I brushed my teeth, I pondered it. For two years, I pondered....and also I cried and I laughed (a bit more of the former than the latter). And for those two years it took on a new meaning: "It is what it is, so I will choose gratitude."
Today that sign has found a new resting place on the shelf beside my dining room table, to the right of my mug collection, just below my produce basket full of Walla Walla sweet onions, to the left of two pictures of my soul sisters. Today, it reminds me of the tears and the laughter, of the fight to stay grateful. And today it takes on a new meaning: "it isn't what it was."
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