Boxes

The sound of the tape gun brings memories. The smell of the cardboard and the itch it leaves on your forearms, the permanent marker pressing ink into the tops of boxes that label my life.

What to keep and what to get rid of is often an emotional process. I am the type of person who gets rid of things, the past will weigh you down, physically and mentally. Do I really want to open a box that reminds me of all I have lost, and all I have had to leave behind? I go through my old dance pictures and costumes. I look at my old life and existence and find I don’t want to keep any of it really. My donation and trash piles grow around me.

I rip up pictures of past my past self, hating to be reminded. As much as I long for who I was, I am not that person.

Shells and feathers are wrapped carefully. Notes from student stretching back through the years I keep. Clothes that hold too many memories are given away. I want a fresh start, am almost desperate for it. I do not want to carry anything I do not have to.

I rid myself of all but my most precious books.

I secretly throw things that do not belong to me away, because I can not keep holding his past anymore. It carries the sad energy of failure and the metallic taste of too many lost years. Trinkets from old girlfriends that he still keeps I sift through and dump. Sometimes with great revelry. Sometimes with envy. Bt always with tears it seems. Pictures of his ex-wife, during one of their many, many vacations. Pictures of the house they bought together. Pictures of holidays they all share with his extended family. Pictures of things I have never been given and things I will never get from him. I can’t carry these anymore.

I throw them away with packets of condiments, and plastic spoons. I must be free of them. Free of the true meaning they hold, free of the choices I never had the luxury to make, free of the “easy life” he once had. If it was so easy, “Why are you not with her any longer?”, I wonder to myself. The past looms large in my house.

I hear that she took “everything” from him. I hear that she “Robbed him of the chances to be a family.” I hear that he, “Was not raised that way!” Meaning divorce of course. Then I hear how much he hates her. But he always wants to appease her and make her comfortable. Usually at my detriment. And so I sneak a bracelet here and a picture there. But he still holds on to too much.

I throw away rusted pans, and half gone pencils. I throw away dry pens and water stained paper. I through away cups with chips in the rim, and cracks through the handles. I throw away fabric scraps and sewing kits that are missing thread. I throw away the echo’s of promises given and boundaries broken.

The rest, I box up and tape tightly shut. Labels carefully written.