let me tell you about relics.
i come from a family who believes in relics. the actual definition of the term relic is "an object surviving from an earlier time, especially one of historical or sentimental interest." (why thank you dictionary widget, god bless you)
i come from a family of relic-ers. we love relics. they are everywhere in our house. we're really big on the elvis bust that my mom got for christmas one year as a joke - he shows up a lot actually, really likes to be public. we have magnets on our cluttered fridge that have been there since i was born or not much after, like our pink triangle "silence=death" magnet, or the picture magnets alex and i made when we were way young, with a picture of us fat and red in snow suits. we have random little figurines, like gumby and pokey, chip and dale, little toys that came in happy meals, a moo cow coffee cream container from my mothers youth. we have movie post cards that my mom used to get working for the cinemas, as well as little strips of actual film from previewed movies. we even have some pairs of cheesy baby shoes on book shelves and plenty of mardi gras beads and other knick knacks from pre-katrina jazz fest new orleans.
so i, of course, am a relic-er. i have been collecting my own personal relics my whole life - this is helped by the fact that i happen to be one of those people that keeps the most useless shit for years before even thinking about giving it away or putting it elsewhere. for example, i have my most favorite pair of dress-up shoes as a girl and to me they are awe-inspiring. to this day, they are still gorgeous and i damn my feet still for not being as small as they once were just so i could wear them out. they are sparkily, open-toed, heeled ruby slippers and as far as i'm concerned they are the most beautiful, sassy, durable and amazing dress up shoes ever made (we're talking hard plastic and a little rubber here dears, don't make 'em like that anymore). i have comic books, i have my own little figurines, my own beads, my own magnets.
i mention this because for the past 2 days i have been packing a lot of them up for my house (and also, this is kind of a warning to my lovely roommates - **i am a relic-er and YES everything has a purpose!**) and that, thus far, has been a very interesting process. here i am, packing up my own relics from home into a new home. these relics are the things that will make this new house home for me, essentially. they will make parts of this place, just small parts, mine and that is something i find interesting in general. to me, relics have always been the main things that make home HOME for me.
so now i'm going to my new home for a while. and it already feels a little bit like home because parts of my family will be there, just different parts. i am excited.
dear ohio,
i leave you soon and i will miss you. it's been real, it's been great. it's been really really great, but i gotta ramble. i'll see you soon.
love
gabe
and hell yes those ruby slippers are coming.
ps: i am oddly addicted to the olympics this year. can we say hell yeah swimming? amazing.
