The things I carry

The things we carry define who we are. Something as simple as a bag, a shirt or a trinket can show you a lot about a person. My life (or at least part of it) can be shown through three distinct items: a caribiner, a tshirt, and a hat named Tabitha.

Tabitha

I found Tabitha at the Philmont Trading Post(she’s called Tabitha mainly as a joke, but the hat means a lot to me and giving it a name felt right because it represents a big part of my life im not crazy just weird). Philmont is a Scout camp where you backpack the beautiful countryside of New Mexico. The ordeal to first meet Tabitha was a long one. The first time I was slated to go to Philmont was 2020, and we all know what happened that year. The next time I was meant to go was the summer before my senior year of high school, summer of `22, maybe the worst summer of my life. In the 2 years leading up to that summer I had been dealing with an debilitating running injury that the doctors could not figure out. Finally, just before I was to go to Philmont the doctors decided that I should get surgery on my legs to relieve the injury. Needless to say, I did not hike up any mountains that summer. The next time I was going to go on a big trip was to Uganda with Engineers without Borders. I ended up not being able to go for mental health reasons, but the next time I did go and Tabitha came with me. Tabitha got her name on that trip, and I realized that this hat is truly as symbol for me climbing mountains(figuratively and literally). Both these trips truly changed my life and world view. And I had to climb my own mountains to get to do these life-changing things. Thus Tabitha, the symbol of my triumph, and a reminder to me every day that I wear her that I will make it, watch me. See you at the top.

Scaletty T-Shirt

My first clear memory of the Scaletty family was chaos, the perfect way to describe them. It was loud, there were kids running around, uncles arguing in the kitchen, and I was overwhelmed playing Bop It in the corner, while the rest of my family made tortellini. I have grown to love the noise, but the Scaletty’s are a bunch you have to get used to. This tshirt is from a family reunion. The design is from my family’s now closed hardware and HVAC store in Parsons,KS. PKUSA WOOO!! When my great-great-grandfather came over from Italy, his plan was to go to California. As many people from Europe soon realize when arriving in America, its BIG. He made it to Parsons and started his own little hardware store. Both he and my father run their own business, and this has caused me to want to do the same. This tshirt reminds me of my dream too start Scaletty Hardware, an engineering company either doing HVAC or robotics. The shirt reminds me of my family history, and my ambitions for the future.

Caribiner

My caribiner has been with me on my water bottle for every scout campout and function. It reminds me of all the fun times I have had in scouts, like when my friend chugged a gallon of applesauce or when I almost got hypothermia at Philmont. Truly some top tier type 3 fun. It also reminds me of my responsibility to uphold the reputation of all Eagle Scouts. One thing that sticks in my mind from the day I got my eagle scout is the following words You are a marked man. To me this means that being an eagle scout means you are marked and people will hold you to higher standard of hard work and good character.It reminds me every time I take a drink of water to be the best I can be, and to always BE PREPARED

These items both remind of what I’ve gone through, and what I want to become. These small reminders, these small seemingly insignificant items have changed who I am, and will continue to shape who I will become.

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.” ― Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

The physical things we carry show our mind, our character and the intangible, invisible trinkets of memory and feeling we carry around every day. Carry something physical that reminds you to let go of the invisible weight.