20 YKK

How to: pack for life

Disclaimer: I’m not actually good at this.

Condensing your life into the plane allowance of baggage usually makes you face your priorities, but for some reason I never got the hang of that. So if you're like me...(And I also just love packing. I love fitting everything together. Things never stay in place for long but it’s the monotony and the sheer mindless pleasure that you get from accomplishing a terribly hard but rather unimportant feat that keeps me invested in packing. Packing can be all sorts of things, but it’s usually a puzzle, a challenge - 3D tetris. suitcases, overhead airplane storage bin things (extraordinarily satisfying -experienced it twice and I will never forget), desks, bookcases. It’s maximizing space. Making the best out of everything.)

Okay, okay, I’ll stop.

packing a suitcase for your life: for the priority-challenged (this coming from the girl who once upon a time insisted upon toting around all the free socks/toothpastes/earbuds she received from various airliners).

1. collections of things (if it happens to be fragile and made up of small pieces, wrap them in socks. Socks are useful for everything)
2. instruments - you have to be dedicated though. They are really space-consuming and you might want to tuck extra clothes if you have room in the case.
3. things people have given you (even if it’s a yellow hawaiian hello kitty shirt that your best friend gave you when you were in 4th grade, keep it). If you are a forgetful person like me, then you might be really attached to all of these random things that people gave you because you’re very very afraid that you’ll forget them if you don’t bring them along. So just bring all of it.
4. also, clothes.
5. books (really depends. extremely heavy, will probably give you temporary back problems while moving, but…I couldn't resist. I did make them #5!)

- Next, try to fit everything into your suitcases. Steal some space from your younger brother, because he has less stuff than you
- Realize belatedly that you absolutely cannot fit all of your stuff in luggage even with that extra space unless you sacrifice your mom’s steel pots and pans and of course she doesn't
- Take out everything to repack again
- Wince as you set aside a couple more Percy Jackson volumes and boxes of older collections. Remember, the smallest weight/size trumps all!

- Repeat. Cry. Get over yourself. Forget about it promptly, because honestly that tea box was only worth what you made it. Sleep. It turns out most of your stuff was useless anyway...