I’ve begun packing. It started with the dusty boxes of old clothes under my bed. I fished each piece out from the pile of crumpled fabrics, and realized that I knew the origin of each sock and every shirt, from the sources of the stains and tears on my dresses, to the littlest feeling I had when I bought, received and wore each piece of clothing.

At the bottom of one box I found my scrub shirts and my white doctor’s coat. I ignored the dust that had accumulated from years of neglect, and started to smell them. Scrubs always felt good at my fingertips. I recalled the many surgeries and farm visits, the running around the Vet Med complex in UPLB, and wiping the sweat off my forehead on their sleeves in the middle of a very bloody splenectomy.  I unfolded the white jacket and found stains on the collar from when I last used it at clinical duty at the Diliman Hospital, and perhaps from the spaces in between the folds came rushing the pride I had wearing white, being doctor, knowing, healing. I buried it under the pile and tried to forget. 

There were many university shirts I bought with my allowance but never used, and many gifts I used once for courtesy’s sake.  What struck me was the small percentage of clothes I had bought myself. Most of these were from bargain sales, flea markets, and the old faithful ukay-ukay at Baguio City.  They all got worn easily, and after a few uses I would put them away but couldn’t throw them out, maybe believing they’d redeem themselves sooner or later.

There was the red Marlboro Tour ’91 shirt I got from Dante, the bicycle mechanic at Corsa, the bicycle shop beside our store in Magallanes where I worked summers during my high school years. I must have been so foolish to dream of ever being able to compete with my self-assembled racer, but from there I learned the intricacies of nuts and bolts, tools and grease and cuts from brake cables breaking and digging into my prepubescent ankles. 

Sarongs and tubaos from Davao, museum shirts from my father’s trips to NY, floral handkerchief gifts from people who never really knew me, they were all there, as if to remind me of my inability to part with memories, no matter how inconvenient it got. They say I got it from Pipop, my grandfather Ponciano. We both had a lot of junk, but mine I took from place to place wherever I went, believing these were the only roots I had.

I folded all of them neatly and packed them tightly in boxes, preparing them to be finally separated from my sentimentality. They will end up in the garbage, or fortunate hands who need them more, or maybe even in another box under another bed for years and years to come. But none of them will come with me, as I deal with the eventuality of  my new life in the big city. 

The only thing I will take with me is my favorite scrub shirt. From there I am going to start my life with my old dreams, and a new love. Oh, I found that dress I wore back in ’98 when we first met. I stood in front of the mirror and placed it across my chest, running my palms across it, wondering how it must have felt for you to touch me. 

And then I started to sneeze. :o)