TGIS.  I am so ready to go back to work and take a break from this whole packing/moving fiasco.  I’ve thrown six garbage bags worth of stuff away in the past two days, and that’s just the beginning.  It’s amazing what you’ll find when you’re forced to really look at every possession you have in your life and decide what’s worth keeping. My room in four years has become a cave of forgotten memories just waiting to be unearthed.  I’ve laughed at photos of some of the best moments of my life, cried at reminders of those we’ve lost, and thrown everything else in keep, toss, and give away piles. While this purging needs to be done, I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I might be a packrat.  Hush to all of you who have already figured this out about me.  Admittance is the first step to recovery, right?  I have at least a hundred greeting cards just waiting for the appropriate occasion, and let’s not even begin to discuss the Bath and Body Works and Yankee Candle shelves.

However, this kind of self-evaluation has given me the opportunity to reflect upon the last few years of my life.  No longer am I the wide-eyed 23 year-old girl that I was when I started this post-college journey.  Instead, I’ve grown… progressed… dare I even say, matured. It’s funny. I spent my first four years in Flagstaff learning any and every thing my professors asked of me, Yet, these last four years have been about figuring out who Laurel is, and as I sit tonight staring at blank walls and cardboard boxes, I wonder if you had the chance to sort through my physical things… would you really see me? Would you be able to tell the story of my life? Would you see the woman of today or just the girl I was? I don’t know. But as I close this chapter and open the next one, I want my new apartment to feel like home and for each and every person who walks through the front door to know automatically that Laurel lives there.