The Box

It’s just a box, a small, simple box.

It’s hard to believe that something this innocuous can have the power to hitch my breath and make my knees weak. I sit on the grass, partly to regain a bit of composure, but also because I want to look inside it again. The box is lightweight but the contents inside weigh heavy on my mind, like an anchor, heavy and stationary. It’s pulling me down in the only direction it can go and together we sink deeper and deeper. I’m either going to get lost down here or drown, so I pull myself back up by focusing on the splendor around me. It’s a beautiful Spring day. Everything is fresh, budding, and teeming with life. I cling to it, and it gives me life too. The sun shines down brightly and warms my skin, while the breeze, light and cool, gracefully sways through my hair. On a day like today, the sun and wind work in tandem. I’m not the only one grateful for their perfect harmony. The singing birds tending to their nests and the playful chittering squirrels are thankful too. Even the flowers seem to turn their petals upward like fingers outstretched to the sky searching for their nurturer. I wonder what I would find if I did the same. But I can’t because the box in my lap is a tether and it’s jerking me back to remind me why I’m here. I take a moment to admire the writing on the lid. It brings a smile to my face, small and contrite. I carefully trace my finger over each letter. The cursive is silly and carefree. It’s the handwriting of my former self, someone optimistic and full of potential. I gingerly open the lid and the best memories of the last few years of my life stare up at me.

It’s been quite a while since I last laid eyes on all this stuff. It’s a time-capsule of such a small segment of my own life. It feels like an eternity since we celebrated our first Christmas together, yet here sits the ornament we bought that year. The light catches hold of it and it’s as if the sun itself is telling me to pick it up. It’s delicate but it feels solid in my cupped hands. We had spent all evening laughing, chatting, and searching for the perfect one. It was Christmas Eve. Not much was left on the store shelves, but you did it. As we drove home, we sang along to Christmas carols at the top of our lungs, each of us trying to out do the other. We started new holiday traditions that year, like the popcorn stringing. It was such a mess, but it made our tiny apartment feel like home to me for the first time. The tree was brightly lit in the corner of the room, our new ornament hung proudly in front for all of fifteen minutes before it offended the cat. The whole tree came crashing down. But despite the cat’s best effort the ornament survived, minus one jingle bell. I always meant to replace that bell, but I never did. Guilt rushes over me and I can’t help but to think maybe I should have tried harder. I push the thought aside and toss the ornament back in the box.

  I pick up what I thought was a strip of paper, but when I turn it over, I see us. It’s a photo strip, the kind you get from a booth at the mall. There are only four pictures instead of five because I didn’t like the way I looked in the bottom one. I ripped it off and threw it away, but you must have grabbed it when I wasn’t looking. I never told you that I found it a few days later in your pocket while doing laundry. I take my time studying each photo. We look so young, our faces smooth and fresh. The hardships of life have yet to find us but they’re at bay, waiting to mark us with worry lines. But not yet. No, in these moments we’re making our own mark, laugh lines made with love and joy. I run my thumb along the edges of the photo strip. There’s a small tear in the bottom photo from where I removed it from the one you kept. I wonder if you still have it.

I saved every note you ever wrote me. Every good morning, every I love you, every have a great day, all of it is in this box. It’s the written testament of our devotion. There’s too many for me to read them all. So, instead, I pick up the first birthday card you gave me. You picked one in my favorite color with a poem inside printed in fancy cursive. Your handwriting underneath is a stark difference from the pretty writing above it, but your words were more endearing than the poem could ever hope to be. My eyes begin to well up, so I put the card back in the box. In the middle of all the love notes is a small rock you gave me. You swore it looked like a heart. I didn’t think it looked like anything except for a misshapen lump. But I couldn’t tell you that, not after you made a big display of giving your "heart" away to me. For a week afterwards you talked about it to anyone who would listen. At the very bottom of the box, underneath all the paper, is a flower pressed and preserved from our first date. I try to pick it up carefully, but it crumbles in my palm. The flower is me. In the beginning it was strong, whole, and certain. Then it was plucked, pressed, preserved, and placed in the box where it became stagnant. Over time it began to fragment. It became weaker. Only doubt grew there. Eventually, the weight of stress and time presses down too hard and it’s too much to bear for the flower whose best qualities were muted long ago. So, it disintegrates. I offer its ashes to the sun and the wind carries it away from my hand until it's like it was never there at all.

The weight of a hand on my shoulder keeps me from blowing away with the flower. It’s another tether, except this one is a lifeline, my support system. It’s gently pulling me back to remind me why I’m here. I can’t fight my tears now and they spill down my face as I stare down at the memories of the last few years of my life. I see the broken ornament and I remember how mad you were at the cat for knocking over the tree. You were still mad about it on Christmas morning. I couldn't tell you at the time, but your anger ruined our first holiday. Next, I look at the photo strip with its missing picture and I remember what happened not long after it was taken. Someone asked me for directions. I guess I smiled too big or looked too happy because you spent the rest of the day berating me about it. I had to spend hours convincing you that I was faithful. You refused to believe me when I told you that I was happy with you, content with us. Impossible you said. In the end you managed to convince me that I had done something wrong. I even apologized. It’s your apologies though that take up the most space in the box. Most of the notes were only ever written to make amends for something you did or said. There’s probably a note in there from the time you threw the heart-shaped rock at my head during an argument. The rock now sits next to the birthday card you gave me. I remember the party that you ruined because you drank too much so we had to leave early. When we got home, you called me every vulgar name you could think of until you eventually passed out. That was the first time you ever told me that you hate me. I cried myself to sleep that night, but my deep, heaving sobs were deafened by the snore of your stupor.

I close the lid on the box. The cursive writing looks childish and unfamiliar. The box no longer feels like an anchor and that’s how I know it’s time. I stand and throw the box into the bonfire. When it burns down to ash, and it’s disintegrated, and lost, I feel stronger and more whole. Like the Spring day, I, too am now fresh, budding, and teeming with life. I outstretch my fingers to the sky like the petals of a flower searching for myself, and I find hope.