i have a wooden box that i have carried with me throughout my many travels in life. over the years, when i quit smoking inside of my house the box had to be outside because it stunk of stale smoke.
after having a non-smoking home i realized how repulsive the smell was inside the box. yet, i still smoke. even after quitting during my pregnancy and breastfeeding. i never stopped craving the nicotine over that almost two year period. it is a serious addiction indeed. and yes, based on my case studies of actual heroin users, it is harder to kick nicotine than heroin.
i don’t mean to post about smokes or addictions. i mean to post about the wooden box that contains a lot of my history in written form. on old spiral notebooks, restaurant napkins, any scrap of paper i could render at the time it was needed. my husband has also joked that it was the key to the soul of me. perhaps.
i took it out of the garage (rather, i asked him to get it for me; it’s really heavy) about a month or so ago after reading a post at dooce’s blog, regarding a certain cringe book. i considered submitting something. then i decided against it.
i thought about what augusten had said about the pain he experienced while writing running with scissors. thanks again to augusten for inspiring me to begin writing again. i know i am not alone in my fondness for augusten’s work. sharing your life with others will not have been in vain. by any stretch of the imagination. i love you for that augusten.
so far, i haven’t opened “THE BOX“.
there was a small extension of my wooden box. it was a metal box and an old empty cigarette carton in a plastic grocery bad that contained pieces of my past. i started with that and opened it. so far, nothing too dangerous in that stack. among other things, i did find an old test that i’d taken that would reveal all the secrets to how my brain works.
i showed it to my best friend; my husband. after reading it, he said that it made sense and perhaps helped him understand some things that were previously not clear to him.
i cannot remember when i did the test, but i do know it had to have been at least 10-15 years ago. it really is amazingly accurate even to me now.
there are very serious things happening in our home that are of the extremely emotional and painful variety.
i cannot open this box until some of this has passed, even i know that much.
i do want to open the big box and see what i find. i’ve done this a few times over the years, and it has served to enlighten me. in addition, it’s been painful. i guess it’s been what i needed at the time. maybe it’s just a big old box of bullshit that has nothing to do with the life i have now. maybe not. we’ll see.
Posted by leah 
