I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad

There are some things that, at 2 am the night before I leave, hold a huge level of curiousity over me. Right now? Behind my dresser in my room at home. A space seemingly long forgotten, a graveyard of artifacts that have tumbled into dusty obscurity. And while packing tonight I remembered my need to look back. So, armed with bare hands and a fear of reaching into a spider's home, I pushed back a set of drawers to explore behind the dresser.

And oh, did I find a lot of dust. I may have developed a dust allergy just from the time I spent back there. But I found a lot of things. Two notes passed between my best friend of the time and myself, noting jokes I still remember and crushes so terrible I must have blocked them out from my memory. I found a necklace given to me by another former best friend and actually remember opening up the oyster (which smelled terrible) to get the pearl. Two bobbleheads - Christian Guzman (whose head won't stay on) and Doug Mientkiewicz - both players during the Twins heyday, no longer with them, but signs of good times that were not really that long ago. A signed The Academy Is... poster, now hanging on my wall. I may not be the hugest TAI fan, but it was pretty awesome when I got it. That show, Something Corporate at the Quest my sophomore year of high school, was entirely fantastic. Almost like a relic from high school days, the club doesn't even exist anymore. The cast from when I broke my wrist in the 8th grade. Despite the ew factor, it's iteresting - signed by everyone I was friends with then, a lot of whom I'm not anymore. And by the people who worked in the Buckle - the store we frequented weekly, almost to a stalker point that year. Signal the nostalgia and pondering now. A souvenir cup from the bat mitzvah of a girl I haven't spoken to in at least 2 years, more Express tags than I knew I had clothes, a penny key chain from San Francisco and tons more.

I left the dresser for my bookshelf. Beyond the basics there are books from my childhool, bringing back memories of reading by the hallway light when I was definitely supposed to be asleep. My siddurim from Wheels and Pilgrimage, a copy of Are You My Mother? from my IGB overseer, a handmade scrapbook from an old friend who I definitely should get back in touch with. I always find it interesting to look back - not just to wax nostalgic, but to actually see the change. Hopefully it's for the better.