My little Magpie frequently begs to go through the boxes at the top of her closet. When curiosity gets the best of us, I drag them down and open each box’s lid. Memories flood the room as old cards, work papers, ticket stubs, and bent-cornered photos come tumbling out.
We sit on the floor and sort through each box. Margaret oohs and ahhs at every new thing she removes.
“This is the card I got for my birthday!” she shrieks.
It is not. Margaret was not born yet when most of the items were tucked away carefully, only to be abandoned later. By the time Margaret came along, I was juggling two kids under three, had a husband who worked nights, and was in general more sleep deprived than sentimental.
The proof: Graydon has three times more keepsakes than Margaret. This happens with second and subsequent children, I know. But perhaps by the time Margaret arrived, I’d become more prudent. I knew by then that old cards mattered less than the people you could text while nursing a baby in the wee hours, like sending up an emergency flare into the darkness.
I look through card after card from Mike’s grandma Katsy, who always signed her name in quotation marks. There are cards from Thomas, signed simply in large font, TOM, and a card from his parents. “So happy you’re in our family,” it read.
There are funny cards and sentimental ones. Cards from our early dating years and cards from the hard years, which always included a message on the side, “Hang in there. We’ll get through this.”
There are funeral programs and wedding announcements. Newspaper clippings from job-related successes and notes from sisters reminding me I am loved.
There are awkward photos from high school, and a note from an ex-boyfriend that takes my breath away. But the shame and regret are quickly eclipsed by the smell of soap still in its package from the Sedona spa where Mike and I stayed on our honeymoon. It smells of lemon and mint, newness and hope, like a feeling just beyond my grasp.
There’s a cartoon I’d drawn for Mike, and on it, a picture of my anxiety monster, who is still a frequent and uninvited guest to our marital play.
As I dig deeper through the piles, more memories emerge. A note to “look in the freezer,” which reminds me of a favorite poem. A ticket stub from the Los Angeles zoo. A scrap of paper from Gray’s first flight. “Child on board,” it says. A bottle cap the meaning of which I can no longer recall. My grandmother’s silver charms and a brochure from a college to which I never dared apply.
At work, I regularly speak with donors who can see clearly how their lives have played out. They can trace the lines and concentric circles blooming throughout their pasts.
Most recently, I’ve begun a somewhat accidental correspondence with an 80-year-old Texan. We share a love of art and gardening, good books, and apparently, long phone calls during which we narrate our comings and goings.
“I’m walking into the garage,” she tells me in between other stories.
“I’m back in the house now,” she reassures.
“Take your time. I’m working from home today. I just sat down,” I say.
She scrutinizes my hastily typed texts. Unlike me, she is careful in her delivery, thoughtful and succinct.
“What do you mean?” she asks after one egregious typo, wondering if we’re still on the same page despite our decades-long and miles-wide divide.
I quickly clarify my intent. And then we’re off again, our delicate friendship still on its way.
On another day, I call a renowned researcher, who is working to turn a weed into jet fuel, among other uses.
We talk about crop rotation and climate change, the Delta variant, and our futures. His work may be foreign to me, but his passion I recognize.
Each day I peek through windows into others’ lives, looking for clarity and commonalities in the boxes we open together. I try, albeit futilely, to answer my open-ended questions through their lived experiences.
She went to grad school later in life, I think, each time I somewhat begrudgingly register for yet another MBA class. He made a successful career change. Should I?
I’ll turn 35 this year, which at once feels lightyears away from my Texan friend’s quiet vantage point, and more than a few lifetimes away from my becoming a renowned researcher. It’s older but not old, knowledgeable but still firmly planted in the young to middle years. I’m equidistant from my hoped-for future and the memories I carry. I have arrived to my life, of my own choices or otherwise. I’m here now.
With the last decade’s detritus in sight, the questions that have been plaguing me lately—those workshop type ones about who I am and what I want—feel even heavier now. I’m tempted to return to crowd-sourcing for approval—what do YOU think I should do? Who should I become now, in your opinion? Where would YOU go?
Instead, I start to recognize pieces of myself I’d momentarily set down. The things I’d tucked away and later forgotten to retrieve. My love of Mexican culture, my fierce pursuit of a job I landed without any true experience, my obsession with faith from an objective viewpoint. “What makes people believe the things they do?” I wonder.
The I Spy book of my life spread around me, I see how the once unknowns have played out. Each experience is a bread crumb that led me here. Like God has been doling out just enough along the way to see me through, a dim flashlight on a wooded trail.
I think back on each decision I made: turning down jobs and accepting new ones, ending relationships and beginning again, picking up the pieces and soldiering on, tentatively at first and then with more surety. I often chose the next right thing and then the next, pausing every so often to listen for the Spirit’s sovereign call.
When Margaret spots a necklace from an ex-boyfriend, she gleefully asks, “Can I keep it mama?”
“Of course,” I say.
It’s suddenly comical to think I’ve kept it all these years, these things I’ve been lugging around from apartment to apartment to married woman house. Then again, maybe I still need to be reminded once in a while. To see where I’ve been before setting out for my next destination.
Margaret prances around in her new necklace and ties a vintage scarf from one box around her neck. She dresses her baby doll in Graydon’s first onesie, and decorates her room with a few of the old photos she’s snagged. I carefully put each paper, each item, back into its box. And stand up, leaving to cook dinner for the family I have now. To keep living the life I’ve chosen. The one that’s chosen me.
