Of Packing And Responsibility

I’ve started packing for my return trip to the United States. I hate putting off packing my luggage until the night before, so I try to gradually fill up my bags over the course of a week instead. So far, I’ve only tossed a few t-shirts and socks into my bag, becasue I’m absolutely terrified about how I’m going to fit everything I have here into two green suitcases. I’ve resigned myself to paying the overweight bag fee, as I see no way I can make my bags weigh less than 50 pounds with all the books and assorted knick-knacks I have. The amount of two pence coins on my desk alone might put me over the limit.

As expected, I experience twinges of melencholy while packing smaller things into slightly bigger things. I remember being so excited and happy to be folding my shirts and placing them into the bags back in June. I don’t get nearly the same thrill now, throwing my crumpled clothes into those same bags. Contrary to how it sometimes sounds, I don’t want to go back to America. Not yet anyway. Packing just reminds me I only have a week of vinegar-doused chips and way outs and efficient public transportation left. The thought that, yes, when I do finally step foot back on American soil my money won’t be worth roughly the same value as Skittles helps a little, but even a greater appreciation for the horrid, horrid U.S. dollar can’t drive away the going-away blues.

Part of me doesn’t want to board that plane bound for Cleveland and a three hour layover because all my problems seem to be based in America. The only times I’ve felt significantly down at Sussex (and those instances happened rarely, I’m happy to say) stemmed from stuff happening back in the United States. The only significant problems England hurled at me were stupidly high prices and vicious seagulls with a taste for strawberry cereal bars I happened to be holding in my hand. Every other hurdle came made in the U.S.A.

One of those problems, the particularly morbid muse for today’s rumination, seemingly spiralled a bit out of control this weekend. My sublet situation went ugly a while ago, but became a bit more urgent this weekend. To avoid needless exposition, I’ll avoid the heavy background – this fake subletter ended up inflicting massive damage to one person’s bank account, and we haven’t paid rent in two months as a result. All of this sort of reached a critical level this weekend, and I got bowled over by it.

I’m not worried about the financial aspect of this – even though I just paid roughly $8 for a packet of cookies and milk. That will all eventually be figured off, and at the worst I’ll just need to work a few extra hours at my work study job in 2009. What gets to me is the responsible aspect of it. More specifically, my apparrent lack of responsibility.

A lot of these tribulations could have been avoided if I’d been more on top of the entire process, and now I need to cough up a lot of cash and deal with all sorts of paperwork. I always thought I was mildly responsible, no master at it, but good enough to not cause any disasters outside of leaving tinfoil in the microwave. Yet this whole incident has shaken me, and made me feel I lot less confident in my ability to maintain anything. I tie “responsibility” with the idea of entering the real of grown-ups – an idea that tends to leave me feeling like I’ve seen my own ghost. I really want to be good at life after college, but always fear I’m going to fail spectacularly at it, jobless and alone. I don’t want to end up like a Judd Apatow film. But stuff like this subletter business shows I may not be all that good at this responsibility stuff yet.

That makes the thought of leaving England even harder. I’m basically on a vacation where I spend a few hours listening to a guy talk about British colonization of Africa and it rains a little more than it should in a holiday location. I have zero major responsibilities here outside of “don’t die” and “don’t cause an international incident.” I can’t run from the inevitable, but who wouldn’t prefer endless vacation to the tedium of everyday life? That idea in itself is beyond immature, but one that’s tough to ignore when I’m actually living it at the moment.

But as much as the idea of being a homeless man in Brighton intrigues me, going home to where the weather is constantly warm and the responsibility is plentiful is probably the best thing. As much as I would love to roam around Europe living off my plethora of two pence coins, being forced to condition my responsibility skills is for the best. And I know they will get a good workout, since I’m being thrown into the “real world” for three months in Fort Lauderdale. At least I’m excited about that particular bout with responsibility.

So while I may not be thrilled at the prospect of beginning my packing with a whole week to go, it’s just something I have to face and accept. But I sure as hell am not packing these two-pence coins.