Pile of Boxes

Since I’m on call every other day lately I sent the family to the in-laws. While they were away I did something remarkable:

I cleaned out my Pile of Boxes.

It’s worth capitalizing because it took up half the room.

I promise I’m not a hoarder. That the boxes were sitting there for 8 months was about not having time to go through them what with being a busy doctor and mom. Promise. Probably.

What was in them? Oh, you know. Stuff. Pieces of myself. Who the hell knows? Most were packed more than 8 months ago. Try 4 years. Obviously, if Former Self thought the Stuff was important enough to place in boxes, it was important enough to keep for long enough to forget what was in the boxes. That makes sense, right?

I’ve been putting it off. It’s painful. It reminds me of my own pathology. Also actual pathology, because I found that textbook.

A sampling of what else I found:

Flannel shirt I bought in 1994 and was hoping would come back into fashion. Which it totally has.

Cards from former boyfriends

1,056 ballpoint pens (estimate)

3 leg warmers

50 pounds of rocks

Framed pictures of people I do not know, some frames broken

Letters from my dad

Articles I never read but was supposed to for Internal Medicine Rotation in school

Scarves I wore on my head for years until Kimberly Clark told me I looked like a babushka in 2003

A burr hole drill

A Masai hunting knife

A trilobite fossil (gift from GB)

My lifeguard swimsuit

17 spiral bound notebook “journals” circa 7^th grade

Notes from several college classes

3 irons

6 umbrellas

It’s never easy for me to go through these things. I get nostalgic and sit down to read portions of essays I wrote for Freshman English. Then I move on to journals from 7^th grade. Then I become depressed and concerned for the youth of America. Then I read a card my Grandmother sent me for my 18^th birthday, mostly to do with weather and some people named Ethel and Howard who I’ve never heard of. Then I find a rock and try to figure out why I hauled that around for 10 years. Then I read a poem from an old boyfriend, and vomit a little bit.

I kept a few of these things because I meant to do something I didn’t do when I was supposed to.

I kept most of these things because they were a piece of me that I wanted to remember, to hold on to. Like I’d lose my roots if I tossed them, lose touch with who I was. So I kept them, and dragged them through several states, 15 years of school, various relationships and jobs.

And this time, I tossed them. Almost everything. It wasn’t even hard.

Something is different now. Maybe I’m ready to move on and leave it all behind. Maybe what I have now is brighter and better than everything before. Maybe that’s part of it.

But I hope what it means is, for the first time, I’m not afraid of losing myself. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere else but this moment in time.

Here’s what I kept:

Flannel shirt from 1994 (dude, I’m totally wearing it all the time now)

50 ballpoint pens

Birth announcements, pictures and papers from my kids

Cards from GB

Letters from my dad

Trilobite fossil

2 journals from 7^th grade (so I can try to empathize when my kids are there.)

Burr hole drill

Remind me never to buy pens, socks, irons, thumbtacks ever again.