Those Boxes

I’ve been  using some of the time afforded by the coronavirus lockdown to go through Those Boxes.  You know the ones I mean.  You may have a collection of your own, those boxes and bins which hold photo albums, scrapbooks, letters, memorabilia, all the artifacts one accumulates through the years.

It has been rather like doing an archeological dig through the relics of a lifetime.  So many memories have been stirred, mostly happy, a few bittersweet.  Sharing rediscovered photos with Sweet Hubby has allowed him a glimpse of the person I was and the life I led before we met.

It’s a relief to get to this task at last.  “Go through boxes” has been on my Someday list for years, as I  carted them from apartment to apartment to house to house to house, adding to them now and then, but seldom taking the time to organize and enjoy the contents.  I have found myself wondering “Why did I keep all of this?”  I don’t have children to pass it to.  And I have finally accepted the fact that no one is ever going to write my biography and so won’t need research materials.  Why, then, do I find it so difficult to let any of it go?

I have finally come to see what these photos, this memorabilia means to me.  It is the evidence of who I have been, who I am, and what my life has been made of.  While I hope it doesn’t happen for many more years, I can imagine that there may come a time when I am in surroundings in which I am regarded as just another old lady, or just another patient.  The content of these boxes are my proof that I have been so much more than that and have lived a life in full.

I saw the Beatles in concert.  I trekked in the Nepali Himalayas.  I’ve camped in deserts and forests, won money on game shows, had dogs and cats and ferrets as pets, written letters to newspaper editors, traveled to England, Spain, Germany, and South Korea.  I’ve worked in a bank, a real estate office, a vehicle maintenance garage, and modeled for art classes for more than thirty years.  My heart has been broken many times and I am now in the happiest possible marriage to the loveliest possible man.

I don’t need to be famous, but I do want to be known and remembered, even if only for one more generation.  And so I have decided to put together carefully curated bundles of photos and artifacts to pass to my nieces and nephews.  They are the ones who have known me best and can keep my candle burning just a little bit longer, just as it is my honor and my siblings’ to cherish the memory of our parents.  It is the honor of every generation to remember those who came before and be remembered by those who come after.

Having realized what this memorabilia means to me and decided its fate has allowed me to take an easier delight in it all.  What a pleasure to see the closet and shelf space that has been opened up by the removal of Those Boxes.  Now I get to cross one more item off the Someday list.  Up next?  Time to tackle the garage.