Packing up

We are in the final three weeks of packing and prepping for the move, and indeed, it is a move, not a trip. I think the moment of realization came when I began sorting through the toys. With a small, though lovely, apartment waiting for us, we simply cannot take everything we own. Each day brings the agony of choosing.

For my four-year-old, choosing which toys get to come has been particularly hard. Obviously his things represent the known world to him. So each mangled Happy Meal treasure we unearth from the toy box brings up all the emotions of moving.

I find myself stealthily shoving odds and ends into black garbage bags while he’s napping or engrossed in a movie. I’ve boxed up toys on the sly and hidden them in the closet just so he won’t have to choose from among them. However, I am nagged by the feeling that I need to allow him to learn to let go of some of his things. This came to a head when he realized a long-broken dinosaur-shaped race track was no longer anywhere to be found.

“Where is my T-rex?”

“Honey,” I said, feeling the guilt again from the moment I buried T-rex in the outside garbage can, “T-rex is no longer with us. He was just too broken and missing too many parts.”

His voice cracked and wavered as he said, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“You can say goodbye right now, just into the air!” And he did. And I realized that kids can and need to say goodbye, and perhaps I don’t need to shelter him so much from the pain of leaving.

So that leads me to today. We were going to be visiting his preschool for the last time. I decided to go through the children's books to find some that were in good enough condition to donate to the school. Somehow knowing that they were going to someone else made it easier for my little guy, though he still had to lift each book near his face and say goodbye. (And there were some to which he just couldn't say goodbye. So you know what? They will go in storage with my blessing along with the tiny baby clothes to which I just couldn't say goodbye either).