A box called "Life"

 

As many may know; I am not uncommonly seen as a wanderer, a traveler, and I have done all but plant a flag upon the hillside and raised my voice in a proclamation of establishing myself as a vagabond in this day and age.  I have been inspired by those that have taken the first steps into what many may seem reckless and undetermined.  As well, I find myself with comfort as their stories fall from their tongues dripping with passion, or as their written words whistle and explode in a firey display of dramatics within the night sky of my imagination.   However in these moments of dreamy eyed hope and for longing, I am left with mixed emotions.  It is a feeling of uncertainty of whether to indulge in the endless road over the next landscape or bask in the calming sense of a home.

There comes a time when one (I) becomes restless for travel, and a time when one (I) becomes restless for a home.  There comes a time when I long for my pack strapped tightly across my shoulders and a never ending horizon of opportunity laid in front of me with foreign languages tickling my ears.  And there comes a time when the ideals of a “Home”; the comforts of age old friends, the normalcy of a daily routine, retracing memorable steps, and the simplicity of my own bed becomes a burning desire.  I have crossed over the fine line, and found the need to lay my pack down, to unburden my shoulders with the weight of the world’s activities on the other side, and to open my arms and heart to a place that has been calling me home for many years now.

A humor finds me while I stash my pack under the bed, hoping that I do not hear it calling to me in the middle of a quiet night like a loving girlfriend hoping to be held with reassurance.  As I fumble through boxes of my belongings that I have long since wrapped up and packed away, I come across one main box of interest.  It hides itself so well behind the “kitchen” box and the “camping” box; it is called the box of “life”.  I can’t help but squeak out a simple giggle as to why I would have labeled some of my belongings in such a way, but it is apparent that in the chaos of packing such things I found humor in it.

As I peel long strands of transparent packing tape back and bits of brown cardboard rip along with it; I am met with my first glimpse of “Life”, and it strikes me with a sense of assurance.  It is a box of my memories, and ones that truly bring a meaningful twinge into my heart.  Not to say that any one physical item can sum up a person’s life, let alone my own identity, but it is so in a peculiar sense.  My box of “life” contains my family, friends, and all the grace of my years spent walking upon this fair earth.  It holds a dozen journals (my life’s transcript), family photo albums dating back to when Santa Claus still existed, and a sense of reality to the accomplishments that I have made.  In a way this box of “life” transcends me to each and every moment that I have captured in my life time.  This box of “life” is just that; the days that I have lived.

In amusement; I can sit and revel in the meaning behind one or the other (my pack or the box), but truly one is not without the other.  The box in a sense is the ends to what my back pack began.  So as I sit and wonder whether I should be packing a bag or unpacking a box, I find myself content knowing that both are an exploration of who I am.  I will continue to enjoy and explore both within staggering moments of my life, and both are a necessity to fully comprehend the love and meaning behind the other.  In knowing this I can sit in the comforts of “home” with a cup of tea in hand and stare out upon the vast horizon that always captivates my imagination.  Knowing that in days to come new stories will be made and after which there will be a time to share such tales of fortune.

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