The Eye of a Needle

Recently, gas prices have become so bad that airlines have changed their back policies, from allowing two bags to go from Europe to America, down to one. This posed a large problem for me, since I'd packed with two bags, counting on having that extra 23 kg of kapow to keep me going.

So I shipped. A lot. Mostly books. In fact, almost entirely books. 27 kg of books combined. Shoot me in the head.

But even then, and even with my vacu-suck package bags, I couldn't fit all my things into 23 kg. So I dumped. A lot. Mostly old clothes, but some significant things were left to be donated to charity. My fleece blanket, for one. I'll miss that.

I also left a number of books with people as gifts, like a book of Scottish fairy tales that I bought in Edinburgh. Giving away so many books was minorly frightening.

And all in all, this packing frenzy denied me the ability to say proper goodbyes to a lot of people in Exeter, which was no fun.

BUT

Condensing everything into one bag, going over and over again and again what was necessary in my life and what wasn't, was very cathardic. It was harrowingly rewarding, picking that little bit that really mattered, and although I miss the rest, learning to live without it.

I still don't know what to make of England being gone. I have one final visit back to Heathrow, and then I leave for good. But this is a large preview of life outside of England, being in Germany, I mean. More on that next.