Identity Baggage

I am on the eve of my permanent departure from Paris. By now, I may be sounding repetitive in my multiple departures from home, in this long anticipated move to Canada. However, it is only in this past weekend that the impression of leaving has actually settled in.

I’ve spent the past two weeks traveling, and I had some wonderful experiences, which I’ll be sure to talk about later, but this is not the subject I want to touch upon today. The last three days were fully dedicated to getting everything together for my emigration and tying up loose ends in my Parisian life. Before, I did know I would eventually leave, but this time, there is a more permanent value to my departure, as I won’t return to France before next winter, when I finish my first university semester. So, I’ve been trying to make sure I have everything ready, and much time has gone into packing my bags. I’m sending a trunk to Canada separately, which I’ll receive in Sherbrooke in September, and I also have a suitcase of things I will be traveling with over the coming month in America. In between considerations of what I need/want in one or the other, weight limitations and how much it is going to cost to send all of this, not to mention the emotion of leaving home, my stress level has been at its highest since I first decided to go to Canada. 

In packing, I’ve been thinking much about what makes my identity, or that of a person in general. I don’t generally tend to attach much importance to my possessions, in a somewhat Buddhist philosophy that what it material is irrelevant, but of course, I’m far from Nirvana, and in preparing to move, I’ve taken the things I own under much more serious considerations. What makes something valuable enough to me that I decide I should take it? There are the things that will be useful of course, but packing is hardly ever done with a practical mind. Mostly, I think I’m taking the things that I think I would otherwise miss. I have more clothes than I need, so selection was done on preferential basis: which ones contribute to expressing who I am. The objects and mementos I packed also have sentimental value and in a way contribute to my identity.

Of course, I don’t set out to pack under the question: "What should I take to fully express my personality?", but as I was finishing up on this whole process, I thought it interesting to see what I took and what these things say about me. Back when I was a bored teenager in need of brain-deadening entertainment, I would sometimes come across MTV’s Room Raiders. Garbage as it was, this show did explore the interesting idea that you can pick up a lot about a person based on what you find in their living space. So in going through all of my possessions, I effectively defined which are relevant to who I am. 

So now I’m taking the belongings I give importance to with me and I’m leaving home. Home seems to be becoming a vague notion for me. While home may still be here in Paris for me, within 24 hours, I’ll have left it and be off to settle my life elsewhere. Despite being French, I’m choosing to create my future around English-speaking media and storytelling, studying at a university in close geographic and cultural proximity to where I grew up in New York. Is this the place I have designated in my mind as home? Am I creating a new identity, or searching for an old one? I don’t really think I’m in search of the past. My experience in the US surely influenced the way I later decided to build my life, but I still think I’m trying to find my place. Going to Canada will continue to contribute to who I am.

In between two wanderings in the world, I find myself wandering in my own identity. I am at the eve of an experience which will surely make me grow and change much. It’s exciting but scary, and so I’m holding on to the most material things that make me. As I enter this next month and travel to great new places, I will surely let go of this anxiety I’m feeling and begin this adventure I’ve been looking forward to for so long.