Earlier today, while I was browsing Pinterest and pretending my life was somehow extraordinary, I came across a photograph of an envelope that had the words, “but I will love you forever, my darling, and that is the problem” written upon it in sprawling cursive. And it reminded me, almost immediately, of my blue butterfly box full of sentimentals — the one I have stacked on a dusty shelf in the back of my closet that is waiting forlornly for my fingers to once again open the crinkled letters inside and bask in the memories of my previous life.
In a slightly sardonic way, I find it humorous that I rarely even think of this box, or of the contents therein, and even more rarely pore over the contents inside, despite the fact that this box contains many mementos of my most precious memories and artifacts of many that I’ve loved and lost. Maybe it’s because some of the memories are still too painful. Maybe it’s because I, like the stereotypical female, just can’t ever seem to let things go. Who knows.
I vaguely remember some distant family member at my mother’s funeral who told me, after poking me in the chest, that my mother would always live on in my heart. I’m guessing that uncle poked me to emphasize that her memory would still live on inside me, but, at the time, I was more annoyed that he had the audacity to poke me than impressed or moved by his heartfelt message. And the reality of it is, her memory does live on — but I try to tuck it away deep inside my blue butterfly box filled with all her letters to me and random pictures that we had taken together before she passed away so that I don’t spend so much time missing her — or my dad for that matter. But tucking it away or packing the feelings in a box never works; emotions are fairly fluid creatures, much like water — hard to contain when everything comes cascading all at once.
In spite of my naturally annoying magnetism for nostalgia, I spend much of my time thinking outside the box — literally. I get so consumed in my personal life and my professional life that I rarely take the time to think about whom I’m missing. When I do take the time to think about whom I’m missing, it usually practically impales me while I’m in the middle of something — be it the middle of the school day when I’m teaching my scholars about thesis statements, while I’m eating lunch with some friends, walking my dog at the park…
Sometimes, the yearning to be able to speak to either or both of my parents is so overwhelming that I am left with no choice but to open the box and reread the letters that I’ve had practically memorized for years, looking for some hidden advice about whatever particular problem or quarter-life crisis I seem to be facing at the time. In the end, no new maxims have been learned, as the contents of the box remain the same, and all I’m left with is the dull ache of their loss and that love that I’ll carry with me forever.
Sometimes, time doesn’t heal all wounds; sometimes, time only makes the preexisting wounds more visible.
Musings of a Misfit 