Cardboard boxes and Collages

 Cardboard boxes are useful, under-appreciated tools. Not only can you pack your treasures into them, they can also be end tables for lamps, a castle/rocket/fort for a child, and an endless source of material for projects. It is amazing to me how much you can really put into a cardboard box if you try. When I was packing all of my things to move, I realized how very little I truly had. I thought of it as packing up my life, and if that's the case, then my "life" takes up a minuscule amount of space compared to others. I can literally fit everything into about 5-6 boxes, and all of that can fit into my little Dodge Neon. What a ridiculously small life I must have that I can cram it all into one vehicle.

Reality check on me: all of my stuff is not "my life." Thinking about all the movie characters and books and people who have said "I'm packing up my life" in reference to moving and having to shove everything into boxes, I am faced with the truth- we define our lives by our stuff. Not in a materialistic sort of way (though people tend to do that as well), but in a tangible sort of way. How quick we are to say our lives are ruined when something is destroyed or lost, whether it be as small as a note or as big as a house. We feel the need to identify our lives with things rather than see them for what they are- a collection of memories and moments, days and hours, that, when strung all together, equal one giant collage that is the essence of ourselves.

We overlook this simple picture in favor of physical pictures: photographs, dishes and carpets, knick-knacks and collectors editions. We rank the success of our life based on how many boxes we fill with meaningless junk. And at the end of the day, when our so-called lives are packed away and labeled for shipping, the only truth that remains lies in the single word- FRAGILE- written on so many of these boxes. Life is indeed fragile, though it does not break when a boxes of photo frames falls over and it does not shatter when a crystal glass slips out of a hand, even if that glass was a gift from a grandmother or those photos treasured pictures of the past.

I am glad that my so-called life fits in only five boxes. I am contented with my life as it is- I have no real complaints and, all in all, nothing is lacking. I don't need 15 more boxes to feel that my life is well lived. I am thankful for my five and the fact that they have shown me how simple it is to appreciate what you cannot put into a box.