Boxes

I boxed up a greater part of my life, love and heart yesterday. I collected things, saw memories in each one, and then piece by piece I gently laid them into the box. This box isn’t a special box; just a plain cardboard box from 3M. I saw this box at work and thought it would be perfect. It carries sanding belts via UPS to be used to sand tubes of titanium. I looked at it and thought that it would be big enough to hold my life and the trinkets that remind me of what was. When I’m done with it, it won’t be just a box; it will be a box full of memories.

I put a box in the box. This box contains cards and letters received from friends and family at my wedding. Why did we keep them? I don’t know. Maybe just to remind us of who gave what, who was there, who wasn’t, who loved us. I hardly see any of those people anymore. People come into and go out of your life like a leaf blown across your yard. It tumbles from one end to the other and then into your neighbor’s yard, then onto other places. More leaves come, but none of them are exactly like the one that got away. But they are all still what they are; leaves.

I put some framed photos in the box. One is a picture of us posing for our engagement photo. We looked so young in that picture. Big hair, smaller frames, and love in our eyes. I can remember that photo shoot, although not vividly. The photographer we hired was a friend of mine. He also took the photos at our wedding. Because he was a friend, I know that we came out cheaper using him. He even gave us the proofs after we paid him for the shoot. The other photo is one from our wedding. It has to be the one I love the most. I am on one side of a small stream, she is on the other, and I am offering my hand in assistance. It reflected the way I felt, the way I feel…just take my hand and we’ll both be just fine. We’ll make it through to the other side.

I put our wedding album in the box. The front of the album cradles another one of my favorite pictures from our wedding. We have crossed that stream and are looking lovingly at each other. We made it through. It is hard to look at that album. I haven’t in a while. I did several months ago when I was at my worst. Looking at it just made me feel even more awful, yet reminiscently happy at the same time. These are photos of us when we felt so in love, at the apex of our happiness. There are photos of family and friends who were there. We all looked so young and happy.

I put our marriage license in the box. It was just a framed piece of paper, but a very important piece of paper. It said that in the eyes of man, we were husband and wife. Let no man tear asunder. I guess you need proof for man…you don’t need a piece of paper to prove it to God. Now that we are divorced, I am wondering…do you get a divorce license? If so, I haven’t gotten mine yet.

I put a notebook in the box. When I knew my marriage was in danger of falling apart, I started keeping a daily log of my feelings, things I wanted to say but couldn’t make my tongue spit out. I wrote how I felt, what I wanted to do to make things better, spilled my guts out on paper, my heart out in ink. I wrote it for myself, but asked her to read it so that she would know my inner feelings. Before I packed it away, I put one more entry in there…words of everlasting love, dates to forget (but have written down to remember them), and a final good-bye to that life; an adieu to that love.

Finally, I put a giant chunk of my heart in the box. I want to keep it in there to remind myself of that love that we shared. The piece of my heart that is packed away is full of memories and love for that former life. It will keep the symbols of that life company. But being the ever hopeful dreamer/lover, I didn’t put my whole heart in there. I want to keep some of it. I want to make sure there is enough to give away again when the time is right, when the person is right, when the love is right. I’m not going to hide the box away. I want to be able to find it to retrieve the piece of my heart I left in there whenever I need it.

I still haven’t closed that box yet. I have cards and letters of love to put in there, I have my wedding ring to box up and insert there. I haven’t put tape on the seams and packed it away. I’m not sure if I have found all that I want to put in the box. I will probably get it out of sight, but not seal it until I am sure that everything that I want to go in the box is in there.

I left another piece of my heart on the floor in the house of a wonderful woman. She doesn’t know it is there, because I haven’t told her that I left it there. It isn’t a broken piece by any means. No, it was carefully removed from the part I kept for myself. By now, it is probably being batted around like some morbid cat toy, leaving splatters of blood and tears wherever it lands. I hope that it is found, the dust bunnies and hair picked off of it, and put away into one of those beautiful boxes sitting on tables and on the numerous shelves that line the walls of the house. I hope it is kept safe because I might want to use it again. It will be kept safe, of that I am sure. I might want to put it back with the piece that I still have, make my heart almost whole again. I might want to put it together and keep it in a box right there, ready to use all over again.

But first, I am going to mend the part I have left, make sure the ends are sewn shut, so that it can grow…so it will be viable and ready for the reunion of the parts packed away in boxes.