Pandora's Box
Posted March 2nd, 2011 at 8:15AM
As I got older, the boxes would be a sort of time capsule for that year of my life. High school. Ticket stubs from movies or concerts. Programs from things we'd go see. Pictures. Notes. Whatever I could save.
The boyfriends that mattered got their own boxes. Everything I had from them went into a shoebox.
Now, I have a marriage. It's over. It's a twelve-year relationship. I thought the "box" was my home. Everywhere there are memories. I've been settled here. We were together forever and there was no need for a box. Our trinkets are in my closet, in my jewelry box, on the kitchen counter....two lives melded together seamlessly. No way to tell mine from yours.
Housecleaning....
At first, this was therapeutic as well as sad. Pulling out the things that were his. I was so busy, I didn't have the time to think about it. So now I'm down to my last closet. Everything else inside the house is done. And then, I found the box.
It's cedar. There are leather straps for hinges and a mirror wtih a fr
Inside, there is the envelope that holds ten dollars of the fifty was my prize in the first photgraphy contest I ever entered. A guitar pick. A tearstained letter from my father to me, written when I was six years old and his divorce from my mother and the separation from me was still a very fresh pain. And so many other things. So many reminders of the time when I was happily married. Pandora's box, bringing up all the memories and the sadness that this is no more. A testament to the time when HE loved me. When he was able to show it. When there wasn't so much water under the bridge. When we were young and life had yet to change us. It was pure and innocent love, untainted by our flaws.
I'm blessed and cursed with a very good memory. And the need to hold on to what's great. Or what once was great. That little box makes me mourn for something that once was. It's like a tiny casket for my young married life. And now, it's back on the shelf, because I have no idea what to do with it.
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I thought this was beautiful . . . I have boxes too.
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Thanks, Billy. I suppose everyone has boxes of a sort. We just have to gather the courage to open them.
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:(
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Not sad, Sweets. Just an observation.
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makes me sad.
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I dunno. I look at it differently, I guess. It's a little sad, I guess. But I had the memories. I had the good times. It's just no fun being startled with them. These things should be opened along with a good bottle of wine.
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I just get hormonal and blubbery at memories sometimes....
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*hands Des a tissue*
*feels bad for bringing on the frowny face* -
poignant.
memories can be like that. even "good" memories -- memories of good times can be sad becasue they are in the past. and yet, it is those good memories that make life so rich, wonderful.
thank you for sharing this well written story. -
*curtsies*
Thank you...: ) That's what I was trying to say. They make life rich...and full. The scenes that will pass before our eyes in the moments before death. I was loved. I lost. I was loved again. I knew these things and these people. And they made me who I am....bittersweet things... -
It's not your fault! I am a silly sentimental mushbucket. I need a tougher skin, methinks.
accomplice said it well. -
Aww. I like silly sentimental mushbuckets. I am one too. : )
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:)
'tis a blessing and a curse -
Indeed...
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I really like this beautiful story, Glowie. It's good to be able to mourn for what was lost, because it started as a beautiful dream of happily-ever-after and there were good times and good memories. It's much better and healthier to be able to do that than to focus solely on the unpleasantness at the end.
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Yes, Jersey...you always get it. I never know what to do with the "things". They are a part of me, but not, anymore. Everything symbolic of something bigger. Like your watches. What do I do with my wedding rings? What do I do with his old wedding band? He got a new one a few years ago because the old one was too small for him, and was nothing fancy...we were so young...but now I have the three rings in another, smaller box in the drawer where my jewelry is.
Datura - I am halfway there. It's been a long road and I did a lot of mourning during the last year that he was home. Friendship sort of peeks in around the doorway, but there is still so much that is fresh in this. I want to smile at the memories. One day, I suppose. When more time has passed, and we are happy with our new lives... -
Sadly I cannot relate. I keep extremely few keepsakes, let alone grant them each a box for their memories.
Worse, I lose my memory of everything quickly and am left with almost nothing but fleeting scenes of past partners.
I wouldn't tell you your memory is a curse or gift. Just that hopefully you have more good memories to keep than bad and that you don't know the hell of never being able to hold onto the good ones at all. -
You express yourself in words very well. It sounds bittersweet, but mostly like you live a life as best you can without too many regrets.
I always saved lil' trinkets and things I could link to memories too. Perhaps, that's all this cedar box is now, not a casket but a shrine.
I love this story, it's a bit gloomy, but very 'real'. -
I loved your story. It made me cry. It's so nice you held on to those things. Sweet memories. That's how you cope. You will open it again, and cry again, but you will feel less sad as time goes by. You grieve, then move on. It's always in your heart. Don't push it away. Deal with it as you can. I think enduser13 had the perfect words for it. It's a shrine. A shrine to all the love and happiness you felt.
It will come for you again. A new box. -
Ds was b'ful...i had my boxes too...with my ex...every little thing he gave me..every movie tkt..candy wrappers...even the metro and busrides...all went into dozens of little boxes...but guess what? i nw know they dnt really matter...
we broke up after suffering a bittermost relationship in which the only things that remained intact were those trinkets...we had already torn each other to pieces...
n nw i am almost married to the most wonderful man in the universe..i say ‘almost’ cz we only lack the legal touch to it...there are no ‘boxes’ to keep the memories into...it’s all inside me...i cn rattle off every moment since the first time i set my eyes upon him...trinkets are just materials nw....he resides within me with all the memories of all the wonderful times we had and will keep having..a part of me that will forever be there..
the other boxes are no longer with me...there’s just no space...every inch of my life has been filled up with Ronee...yeah that’s my guy...n i dnt need boxes anymore...i no longer need smthn material to hold on to our memories...we recount them together...
Yes... my world with him is in itself a Pandora’s Box... -
Thank you very much for sharing your stories. I have a single box... It contains pictures of the first woman I had a long-term relationship with. We broke up on good terms but it still hurts to see those photos and remember the wonderful times and the mistakes I now see with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
I debated whether to shred them, but instead I put them in a box and placed it in a closet. It gives me a strange kind of comfort(?) knowing the box is there while giving me the motivation to move on and not dwell on the contents in my Pandora's Box. -
that was sad and inspiring in a sense a bit
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I opened the boxes that my ex-girlfriend gave me... The message she wrote in there were sweet and romantic, but it's really hard to look at it while I'm trying to get over this. I'm thinking of throwing it away...
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Pain on opening on that little box ! Oh God ! Help me. But can I live without looking at it at short intervals? No. Never met such a person and never thought that she will have such a tragic end. Never imagined that there can exist such a friend and never thought that she will leave this world so soon.
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really sweet :)
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))) i also have a little box. and music, associated with ppl. ) great)
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This was a beautifully written piece. Very poignant and honest. I could relate very well to your feelings and this very vulnerable period of time you have to bear now. I had your same experience when my marriage ended 6 years ago. I remember coming in our old house for the first time after I knew the marriage was over. I remember looking at our family photos on the walls, the kitchen and dishes (all the happy dinners), the new beautiful tapestry sofa and loveseat we had just purchased a few weeks prior, and all the special things displayed in our glass china cabinet. My late father's urn with his ashes( I had just lost him the year prior), the dogcollars from our dearly departed pets, the top to our wedding cake from 14 years in the past, the sterling baby cups received as gifts when our daughter was born. It had a most surreal feel to it. I actually got physically sick.....I vomitted. I was in such emotional pain. Here was OUR LIFE, a life I thought I knew, our FAMILY HOME......what kind of monster has come and betrayed our trust and now is taking our innocence away?? I was shot through the heart. He moved out a few months later.
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This was nice, I feel like I know a bit about you now. I hope you find a love that won't go away... I know one that will never leave is GOD. GOD will always be there for you.
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is it me? or is it the fate of every women? is it because im not yet married that i feel that every wife will face moments where her marriage will become cold but she is still able to make it lovely again? or is it that no one can change it?
personally i advice u to live every moment,, instead of crying and feeling bad about ur past memories, why dont u correct ur present marriage, have some love and make it alive again by romance.......have hope my sis, WHEN THERE IS A WILL , THERE IS A WAY my dear :) -
This story is truly touching! I wish you much happiness always.
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