on homecomings & the ghosts that we pack away
when your past has a zip code and a monthly fee
tl;dr: while celebrating a 4.0 gpa and surviving work chaos, i'm back in michigan to finally confront three years of memories locked in a storage unit. turns out closure comes with a keypad code. 🔐
hey mi gente!
somewhere between submitting my final paper and boarding my flight to grand rapids, i realized that endings rarely announce themselves. endings tend to sneak up on you disguised as ordinary moments, like the click of a submit button or the jingle of storage unit keys.
but let me back up for a sec.
it's been a minute since i've written here - not because i haven't wanted to, but because sometimes silence is a symptom of something deeper. between school finals turning my brain into puré de papa and life commitments that feel like they're multiplying faster than my tía's chismes, i've found myself caught in a strange creative paralysis.
the semester that almost broke me (but didn't)
remember that feeling of running behind a train, desperately trying to grab the caboose? that was me this entire semester - caffeine in one hand, anxiety in the other, somehow managing to pull off a 4.0 GPA. ¿cómo lo hice? honestly, i'm still trying to figure that out. turns out desperation is one hell of a motivator (please don't try this at home, te lo suplico).
my last submission for the semester happened last week, i turned in a five-page organized rant about how the gop uses color-blind racism to advance their political messaging. fueled by way too much cafecito and deep dives into eduardo silva-bonilla and táíwò's "elite capture" plus omi & winant's "racial formation in the united states." got a 100% on it! (attached below if you want to see your boy in full academic mode).
not to be left behind, work's been its own kind of chaos - the type where you find your phone in the fridge and your coffee in your bedroom. así de mal, fam. work decided to throw in some spicy end-of-year drama (because why not?), and just when i'd catch my breath thinking "okay, i got this," midterms would pop up like an unexpected 'we need to talk' text. then finals hit me like a caffeinated freight train.
somehow i've been:
working full time (screaming internally)
maintaining my fitness (mostly… ish?)
showing up for kiwanis (sometimes late, but present!)
writing an album (in theory)
passing my classes (actually though!)
bendito, looking at this list now, i'm either incredibly resilient or absolutely unhinged. maybe both? probably both.
winter in michigan: a cold reality check
now i'm back in grand rapids, where the winter air doesn't just chill - it judges. three years of san diego living has turned my blood into horchata, and my midwest winter survival skills have apparently expired. 🥶
but the cold isn't what scares me.
there's a storage unit on the outskirts of town that's been holding my breath for three years. inside those walls sits the carefully packed remains of my washington, dc life - the one where i thought i knew what "forever" meant.
funny how we pack away heartbreak, isn't it? like if we wrap it carefully enough in bubble wrap and packing tape, maybe it won't break further.
mine has been sitting there since 2021, when i fled to san diego with my entire life fitting in three suitcases and a u-haul truck. I left behind eight years of "us" and a future i thought was set in stone. a future i thought i wanted.
inside that unit wait things like photo albums from when happiness felt permanent. the kitchen gadgets we bought planning dinners together. birthday cards signed with promises that had expiration dates we couldn't see. and… the coffee maker that brewed our last cup together.
the price of keeping ghosts
for three years, i've been paying monthly fees to keep these ghosts locked away, as if i could somehow preserve the good parts and keep the painful ones from seeping out.
but here's what palm trees and pacific sunsets have taught me: sometimes the heaviest things we carry are the ones we can't see, and sometimes letting go requires actually letting go - not just changing time zones.
next week monday, i'll open that metal door one last time.
i started this process with my dad - he picked me up in dc and drove us in the u-haul from dc to michigan. and now i’m going to end it with him too, he’ll be helping me clear shit out. it feels very much full circle, a closure, a… complete end to the story.
this is not about the monthly payments anymore (though mi cartera will certainly appreciate the break). it's about finally accepting that chapters end, that objects are just objects, and that keeping them won't keep the good parts alive any more than letting them go will erase that they happened.
what we keep, what we set free
we all have our own versions of these metal boxes. the storage units of our lives, so to speak, an attic of oblivion.
some of us pay monthly fees to climate-controlled facilities. others keep their boxes locked away in closets, in dresser drawers, in carefully-avoided folders on our phones. in spotify playlists we can't delete but never play. in routes we take to avoid certain streets, certain cafes, certain memories.
maybe true growth isn't about learning to live with our ghosts - it's about learning when to set them free. it’s about knowing when to look at the physical remnants of a past life and say: "te agradezco todo lo que me enseñaste, pero ya no te necesito." thank you for everything you taught me, but i don't need you anymore.
next week monday, i'll open that metal door one last time. i'll probably cry. i'll definitely laugh at how young we were, how certain we were, how beautifully naive we were about forever. i'll touch each item one last time - not to remember, but to release. not to regret, but to recognize how far i've come.
because this isn't just a storage unit anymore - it's the last page of a chapter i've been too scared to finish reading. and next week, finally, i close the book. not because the story wasn't beautiful, but because new stories are waiting to be written and… well, i’m a writer. i need to get to work.
tell me, mi gente: what are you holding onto that's really holding onto you? what beautiful ending are you avoiding because you're afraid it might hurt? what would freedom feel like if you finally let go?
maybe we can't all drive to michigan and empty out our storage units together. but we can share our stories. we can witness each other's courage. we can remind each other that sometimes the heaviest doors lead to the lightest feelings.
let's be brave together. not because it's easy, but because we deserve the space that opens up when we finally let go.
your turn, belleza. 💖
edgard ✊🏽🌈
p.s. if you see me ugly-crying in the storage facility parking lot on monday, no you did not! pas du tout!
p.p.s. and if you see me stress-buying comfort food at meijer after, also - mind your fucking business, hahaha.
I felt this to my core - I have a storage unit in Philly just like that from when I fled to Phoenix!
I have to admit I’m moving into a new place and it’s hard for me to get rid of stuff, the receipt from the gas station five years ago or the thousands of notebooks/planners from like 2018 until now lol so I felt all of this! On a lighter note, I’m a slut for a downloadable pdf file, so yes I will sitting down to read it with my green tea 😂