I don’t even like having to pack for a family vacation, but at least at the end of it I know I’ll be heading off to some wonderful, hopefully tranquil spot for rest and relaxation.

So you can imagine how I’m feeling these days having to pack up an entire house for a big move to who knows where. I haven’t even found a spot to land, but I know I have to move so, I’m packing for that day.

And oh my it is more than a notion. I’ve been packing for weeks now and It doesn’t seem as if I have made much headway at all. Picture the little rat running on the wheel. Now add my face.

Actually it seems as if the only thing I have been successful at doing is turning the entire house upside down. I mean everything just looks like a big mess to me. I hate that “I’m over whelmed feeling, you kow when every thing is every where. I know you've been there. It's crazy. Or at least it looks like crazy. 

It’s kind of like when you get the bright idea that you are going to clean out your closet so you just pull everything out of it and dump it all on your bed. Then about half way through the task you find yourself asking no one in particular, why the heck again did I decide to do this? By 9 p.m. when you are exhausted and ready to crash, that bed still looks as if it is full of clothes. So either you are going to finish the job or just push everything into the floor and crawl under the covers. Me, I’m pushing it in the floor.

But what must be done, must be done. So I told myself, just put your mind on it your body in it and geterdone.

The hardest part for me has been staying focus on the actual task; fill a box, tape it up, get the next box, repeat. Take going through old clothes for example. Tucked away in the back of my closet was the burgundy, floor-length, silk skirt and embroidered top I wore to my sister’s wedding. As soon as I saw it a smile spread across my face. Suddenly I could see myself in the dress walking down the church aisle holding a small bouquet. I saw my uncle, now deceased, dancing down the aisle holding an African drinking gourd and spilling libations for the ancestors who’d passed. And I saw my dad, deceased walking my sister down the aisle. I haven’t worn that dress since the wedding 16 years ago, but I folded it and placed it in a box to keep.

Then there was the floor-length red dress, really sexy, that I wore the night my husband Ceaser took me as his date to the William Chrisman High School prom where he was a chaperon. I remember us dancing to some hip hop music and one after another some of his male students giving him the business and cutting in on him to dance with me - so much fun. That dress went into the box too.

I found a tiny, red, sweat shirt with a blue Cookie Monster on the front. Jordan wore that sweat shirt in the first family portrait we ever took. Had to save that. And Ceaser’s Buffalo Bill’s jacket, he loved that thing. It’s beat to hell but no way I could give it away. Each piece took about 10 minutes to fold. I had to hold them and smell them and smile and laugh and sit a minute to scan my brain for the fond memories.

Then I sat in the floor of the office and went through the file cabinets. The intent was to purge old no longer needed paper work. I ran across, ink prints of the boys’ infant feet. And tons of photos of Ceaser and I from before the boys were even born. The day our colleagues at Newsday gave us a surprise wedding reception in the newsroom and Ceaser smashed cake in my face. And the day some old friends from the Philadelphia Inquirer gave us an engagement party at a house in New Jersey and I wore a denim skirt that was too short so I spent the entire time tugging at it, trying to keep it from riding up on me. So silly.

And the photos from my actual high school prom and college years and of Ceaser, in his 20s when he was touring Africa. Wow! So young, so handsome. And forget about all the baby pictures and the photo of my mom, my dad both of whom have long passed away. I found letters and cards Ceaser and I had written to one another over the years. I found old report cards and the program from my dad’s funeral. It took me four hours to do what should have taken an hour. I lived a whole life in that time.

Packing for a trip is just a pain. Packing to move from your home is painful and tearful and funny and hopeful. It’s final. It’s thinking about a whole new chapter. About going some place new to make new memories.

But as long as you're packing, you are reminded of how you got to where you are and that you will take those memories with you where ever you go. I know I’ll be taking mine with me, boxes of them.