Sunday, September 12, 2010

Past, I'd like you to meet Present

So, here I am on the eve of my 40th birthday and I've chosen to have all of our stuff that has been in storage since 2002 delivered to our home.  The truck pulls up and as the 3 friendly fellows unload our former life, Sean and I stand on the sidelines and exclaim "oh, geez, I forgot we had that" every 2 minutes.  That seemed pretty bizarre until we started opening the boxes.  Photo's, wedding gifts, gear, books, cd's, my CuisiPro measuring spoons, everything was new to us again.  The first thing we tackled was putting together our bikes.  Keenan was exceptionally impressed to learn that we have 4 between the two of us!  We went for many "bike rides" up and down the street today and can't wait to hook up the trailer and hit the trails with the kid in tow.  So far almost everything we've unpacked has survived the 8 years in storage.  The big shocker was the considerable damage to our kayaks.  Some form of rodentia got into them while they were in storage in Peterborough, built themselves a huge nest and totally chewed through one of the bulk heads in my boat and partially chewed through the same spot in Sean's.  Both of our seats need to be replaced because they're so consumed but it's all do-able and the trucking company is going to take care of the repair.  So, I won't get to go kayaking on my birthday but I'll get to fawn over all of my long tucked away kitchen gadgets and my stockpile of shoes!  Oh, how I missed my shoes!  As of right now our place is in that very frustrating stage of being agonizingly messy as we're sorting through the boxes and moving them to where they should be.  It's an odd feeling to be moving into a house you've lived in for almost 3 years and it's even more odd to have this sense of our past and present lives suddenly colliding.  Keenan is so full of questions.  He wants to open all the boxes right now and everything that comes out needs to be examined and discussed.  It's a lot to manage on top of the nostalgia.  We've already got several boxes set aside for charity and we've tossed some things as well.  This stuff has been out of our lives for 8 years and we're either fiercely attached to it or could case less if we ever see it again which really helps in the sorting process.  If I were to vacillate over every t-shirt that no longer fits or tea-light holder I'd likely lose my mind inside of a week.  I've got mixed feelings about the closure this brings to our lives.  This is truly the end of the adventure we started what seems like a lifetime ago.  Time to embark on a new adventure I guess.  Just short local forays as we'll need to get through these boxes and we do enjoy the feeling our roots digging deeper into homeland soil.