Preface

Writing this preface makes it start to seem that this book may actually be real. Crazy.

I did not sit down to write a book. At least not initially. Unpacking had been a title in my head since sometime after my father passed, but this book that you are holding is not at all what I thought the book belonging to that title would be.

Unpacking I got from my sister Mia. She is young(ish), hip(per), and very much in tune with communicating and sharing and feelings and all of that shtuff. And that is all I will say specifically about her, given that the main reason Unpacking is different from what I first envisioned is because I decided it wouldn’t be right to "unpack" other people's lives publicly.

There has been, and continues to be, a great deal of unpacking of my relationship with my mother and father and sisters and brother and even my stepmonster. I have just chosen not to share those thoughts publicly at this time, as some boxes aren’t mine to unpack.

What I am sharing—and yes, there are brief references to the above-mentioned humans in some of the essays—is what I have thought, feared, felt, and struggled with as I have gone through my mental health journey over the past five years.

Once I was convinced to create a Substack profile and begin sharing my journey, I started to realize that I had written far more than I thought and that there seemed to be some consistent themes and messages in the essays I had written. Seeing the "collection" together in one place like that, and noticing that people were reading them, made me begin to think maybe I should do something with them.

Here is what is somewhat amazing about this title and this book: after getting through the initial onslaught of severe anxiety and when I started to have days where I felt somewhat better, I began reclaiming my life, and much of that involved LITERAL unpacking and repacking. I started going through everything that had collected, some in huge piles and the rest in boxes. I made several trips to the mission to give away piles and piles of clothes. Clothes that I hadn't worn in years. Clothes I hadn't seen in years, and even a few pieces that still had price tags. I also started going through the boxes I had out in my garage and discovered all sorts of things, like a project I had done in elementary school stating what I wanted to be when I grew up, and letters and photos from people I hadn't thought of or been in touch with in years. This process was very difficult and very emotional, but also very necessary and extremely cathartic. Unfortunately, the process continues still, but these essays are in large part a result of that process.

I have a lot more unpacking to do and will keep writing along the way. I hope next to get back to working on a piece called The Boy, the story that goes with all the memories that came out of those boxes. In the meantime, as I have said with every essay, I hope somebody somewhere finds something in this collection of essays they can relate to, and I hope some people are helped by what they read, even if only in some small way.