20 years ago, I was in the middle of a break-up.
My long-time boyfriend (yep) and I lived together in Jersey City, and we decided that as part of our split, I’d move out. I didn’t have a whole lot of experience yet with the world, and I was so overwhelmed by the mere idea of separating our things and packing my shit that I became completely submerged, with no idea of how to even start. I hadn’t been out of college for that long, I was still traumatized from being right near the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, and I was making ends meet through a jigsaw puzzle-mixture of poorly paid acting gigs and poorly paid nannying gigs. Plus, this guy and I had been together in an again-off again way for a staggering four or five years by that point and were even engaged. Oh, and there was the added little detail that I started to suspect I might be more into women than men (I had an epic rendevous with a lady I met on AOL during one of our off-again moments). It all felt like a mountain I simply could not climb.
In my head, those very early aughts are somewhat sepia-toned and fuzzy. My boyfriend and I—and our third roommate, Meghan—paid just $250 each for rent at our first-floor pad that wasn’t near anything except a shitty laundromat where the machines were always broken. One time, on the super-sketchy $1 van ride back from the city, both the passenger door and driver door jammed and all the passengers had to climb out of the window. Things were chaotic at best.
I remember calling my then-bestie, David, and basically having a meltdown. David and I were in an AIDS-awareness theater company together at the time, and I frequently crashed at his Queens apartment on nights when we were out too late partying (or, more likely, processing) and the path train to Jersey City felt too creepy (I had finally written off the climb-out-of-the-window van option).
“Where do I even begin? I don’t know what to do,” I cried into my giant, overpriced cell phone while undoubtedly incurring monstrous roaming charges. I had super-short crooked bangs that I cut myself and a shoulder-length bob that I paid too much for. I wore oversized, patterned, caftan-like shirts and smart walking shoes.
David was, as usual, empathic. Though he was straight and I was not yet gay, our friendship immediately had a brother-sister dynamic. He was a few years older than me—so perhaps around 27 at this time—and found my “too much-ness” to be charming, not (terribly) annoying.
“Pack a box,” David said.
“What?” I replied, my mascara-tear-cocktail smeared across my freckle-face like some kind of unintended goth statement.
“Pack. A. Box,” he repeated. “Just one box. Then call me back.”
He hung up.
This advice—to pack a single box when it all seems too much—not only helped jostle me out of my depression-induced daze and difficult break-up at the time, but it stuck with me for the weeks and months and years and decades that came next.
And now—20 years and so many thousands of smudged-mascara moments later—I am remembering David’s sage advice to pack a box.
Today, that advice is not only literally helping me—since Moore and I are moving to Rochester in two short weeks—but it’s allowing me to deal with some heavy emotions that are coming up for me in a variety of ways. Baggage will be baggage and Jazz will be Jazz.
The things I love about myself are also the things that drive me nuts.
Something tells me I’m not alone in that. My sensitivity, my tenderness even when it’s hella inconvenient, my deep love for people and ideas, my ridiculous devotion … these are all my best and worst qualities. There is not enough waterproof mascara in the world sometimes.
And yet, I am always on the move. In search of that next project or idea or deep connection. It’s what makes me me, and it’s what makes my life have meaning. My drive is my religion, my creativity my anchor.
Even when things feel impossible, and life is too big to fit into our to-do lists, we can find some sort of solace in knowing that all we have to do is the next indicated action.
Whether that means planning for the next big geographical move or doing the heavy lifting of knowing that you’re enough just as you fucking are, it really all boils down to what David told me so many years and fears ago.
Pack a box. Just one box. Put your shit in it.
Then, keep going.
Onward,
jazz