Tripping Down Memory Lane
Been sorting through my "Memory Box" tonight. I haven't put anything in it in years, so it's full of random mementos of my life up until the summer right before college (including the first few emails I ever received from arawethiel while we were planning our dorm room!). It's kind of funny how everything I placed in there was intended to call up a memory about a certain event or person...and now I don't even know what half this junk is. I'm stumbling across a few pleasant surprises and a few "Oh, so that's where that was!" items, but there's also a couple - just a couple - of things that are making me think about my life and the way I've lived it. Not in any deep, broody, full-of-regrets kind of way, mind you; it's just helping me see some patterns that I'll hopefully be able to break out of in the future.
For example, I would say at least 25% of everything in that box has to do, in some way or another, with boys I liked. I shudder to think how much time I lost obsessing over these guys. Not all of them were jerks (I wouldn't develop that habit until college), but none of them were worth all the energy I expended on thinking about them and wondering what they thought of me. Luckily these days I'm a selfish beyotch and am focusing on making myself a well-rounded and interesting person whose identity and self-esteem are not completely dependent on whether the boy of the moment does/doesn't like me. I don't always succeed, but at least I'm trying!
Also: there are a couple of great friends that I let slip away. A quick Google search doesn't turn them up, they're not on Facebook, and I haven't the time or the resources (monetary or otherwise) to dig any deeper, but one day I will because even though I don't think about them very often, I miss them every time I do. And I guess I lied when I said this box didn't bring up any regrets because I regret not keeping in touch with some of the people I cared about. But I suppose if that's the biggest disappointment I carry away from this box o' my past then I've lived a pretty good life so far, eh?
To decompress and lighten the mood a bit:
Click to view(One of my all-time favorite Life of Brian moments. "Where's the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?" makes me laugh like a loon every single time.)