I have been wanting to open this red box for some time but I was never physically present to do that.
Throughout the year I was just hoping and praying that my mom wouldn't throw it away (which she tends to do with random boxes when in her cleaning mode).
The contents of the box(es) are very special to me. Trifles, you may say, but special nevertheless. It's a collection of different objects that I've been gathering since I was a teenager. To be honest, I was very cautious opening it. I didn't know what I'd find this time because I rarely dare to look at all the stuff and often chose to pick through it. It has lots of funny and childish things in it, but it brings back some very painful memories as well. However, I have decided this summer that I have to start putting to rest the ghosts of the past and learn to face the things I would much rather erase from the timeline of my childhood.
It's actually quite a nice journey exploring the contents. Among other things, you would find my first paycheck ever (from the Slovak Radio Station where I presented three of my poems as a 10 year-old; shame that my poetic juices have drained since then), a photo of our beloved guinea pigs who are all in the guinea pig heaven now, my old library passes (I was a bookworm big time until about 16), butterfly stickers, a pocket mirror, twinkling pencils and similar girly accessories. Some stuff I never liked picking up (but I kept it for some reason anyways), such as a bunch of keys from the house where my dad lived with his girlfriend and where we used to go for visits, or a few passport pictures of myself as a 12 and 13 year-old that I hated looking at until recently. I always thought I was ugly and disgusting, and that it was a reason for why I was bullied at school. Looking at the same pictures now, I can see a beautiful young girl who believed her and her surroundings' lies, with sad eyes that could cry at any moment but are well-hidden behind those uncool glasses and a semi-convincing smile. It pains me to see myself looking so beat down and with so little self-esteem, but I thank God now that I see how far He's taken me since then and how He taught me to love myself so that I can in turn love those who bullied me and not hate them anymore.
The main reason for opening the box, however, was the treasure of every teenage girl, my journals. I buried lots and lots of information about how I coped with the good and bad things that came after my life got a different spin just before my 10th birthday. I had a very "writer friendly" stage between 13-14 years when I produced 5 or 6 journals, most of them filled cover-to-cover. That was when I loved reading L.E.Blair's Girl Talk, a 90s paperback series about five high schoolers who were each keeping a journal. Of course I had to do the same. And thankfully so! It's a great way to spy on memories, many of which I have largely suppressed. Then there were 2 years of silence when I was angry with the world and thought writing journals was for kids. I regret not keeping track of what was going on with me then, because it was quite the spectacle (I think my mom can talk to you about it). But I sobered up and discovered at 17 that keeping a journal is actually a very mature thing to do. It helps me make sense of what's happening in my head and in the world around me, and it serves as a sort of a chronicle I keep for myself and others in the years to come.
Amazing how a single box can tell so much about a person. Now I understand why my grandma gets so excited when we are sorting boxes of her old photographs or why my mom gets all nostalgic unwrapping Christmas decorations from the attic. Every object we own has a piece of our history attached to it, and it's up to us to keep some of them so they can remind us of the sad and happy stories we can talk about to our older selves and to the ones walking along with us.
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