Shoebox

A good friend of mine used to have what he called his 'shoebox of lies.'  He took the name from a Barenaked Ladies song, and his box was filled with old letters and card, gifts from people who had once cared for him, people whom he had once cared for.  We joked about that shoebox thousands of times, but he recently told me he threw it out.  Time to clean house, move on, start fresh.

I have a box like that, not filled with lies, but with the words and music and gifts of one particular relationship.  I have not opened it since I filled it, eyes full of tears and heartsick that I may never see or hear or feel those things again.  I couldn't throw those things out, though.  I couldn't let the artifacts of love, the evidence of joy rot in some landfill somewhere while I wept over their loss.  And I didn't want to be one of those people who thought the love that had existed between us was somehow false or dead simply because one of us made a huge mistake.

I have, of late, been wanting to open that box, to sift and see, to dig and dream.  In my reverse Pandora story, there is no evil to be unleashed by looking, but there are small winged moths of hope that may come flying out should that lid be lifted, and I may be, today, more afraid of those flutters than of any other carnage or chaos because, when hope is shattered, when faith goes, there is simply no other road to travel.

So, for now, the box is buried, the lid latched, and I wait, wondering if there'll come a day to dream again.