All Boxed Up
Posted By jayna on February 19, 2010
I wasn’t here when the boxes were unloaded from the trailer. I didn’t carefully direct each one to it’s proper room, nor did I stake out a designated area for those special boxes. And then I got here and got down to unpacking and started finding them everywhere I turned. Those boxes that we just don’t speak of. The ones that plague every move and gather dust in a corner, a closet or a garage until something drastic prompts their removal.
The everything boxes.
Full of odds and ends, trash and treasures. Where old sets of keys and a single battery and an ancient film camera and loose playing cards can get mixed in with trinkets from travels around the world and sets of senior pictures and birthday cards and a favorite childhood toy. The boxes that get filled up when there is simply no other category to file something under, no better place to put it in. Around here, everything boxes are known as “I’ll deal with it later” boxes or “When we stop moving, I just might unpack it” boxes.
Well, later is here and we actually do think we’re done moving for the next few years. So, the time has finally come to whittle down the everything boxes. Pictures are being placed in albums with care, old batteries and pens are being tossed out, and the ancient film camera is now the coolest toddler toy. The process has been so successful that I’ve made it down to the final box. And then, everything came grinding to a halt.
This last everything box, well, it was really a memory box.
Filled to the brim with useless things, all collected from around the world. The glass hermit crab from Key West, the bumper sticker from the Grand Tetons, the hand painted eggs from a Ukrainian festival, the soapstone elephant from Tijuana, and every single thing I saved from my trips to Russia. All of my class notebooks, my Metro card, a change purse full of money and exhange receipts, post cards, matroshkas, song lyrics, my student ID and the doll I carefully picked out for my future daughter.
As I sat in our closet, with the door closed to muffle the sound of crinkling paper, I sorted through each thing. I read my school notes and the song lyrics, hearing lectures in my head. I fingered the Metro card, remembering the sway of the trains. I got lost in the memories and simply sat, missing those summers that I’ll never have again. Summers that taught me so much, about who I really wanted to be and how it feels to find a place with the perfect fit.
Then, with the tiny hope of someday, maybe someday, I packed each thing back in it’s spot. A few trinkets were left out to be put up high in places safe from tiny fingers, and the delicate doll was set out to be discovered in the morning. This final box will stay just as it is, waiting for new memories from around the world to be added.
Someday, they will . . .
I can't believe you are totally unpacked…you are my h hero. I have neither a baby or a toddler and I still have boxes that have been waiting to be opened for 4 years (some longer)
the doll is beautiful.
Please come to my house. Now. If you can find that much beauty and wonder in even one of the 4135636426 boxes that we still have left to unpack, it will totally make my year.