Everything I Was, In a Box

I went to pick up my mail yesterday and amongst the Martha Stewart magazines and Netflix discs were a few packages waiting for me.  Yay!  I love packages!  One was a mug - yay! I love hot drinks!  In another, the diploma that signals the end of my disposable income for the next 17 years. - yay!  And also, boo!  The last one was a big, the contents of which were unknown, until I saw the handwriting on the label.  The ex, E-Mail Man, had sent me back everything that was at his house, in a giant box - yay?

Everything I ever had at his house was in this box, from my junk tennis shoes I asked him to throw out 7 months ago to the camera I asked for 2 months ago.  Shampoo with almost nothing in it.  Sunscreen I used once when we kayaked.  Rogue bobby pins and hair ties.  A grimy bath pouf.  Things that could've been tossed in the garbage, things that were meaningless, things that comprised everything that was left of me in that duplex in northeast Texas - here they were, in this box.

The camera was the only thing I wanted, the rest I told him just to trash.  Yet, he chose to send everything back in this one box.  That's who I was in that relationship, this box.  This box of junk.

But, that's not true, is it?  I was more than that box, even though the little reminders of me were in it.  And I learned a lot from E-Mail Man, even if I don't want to admit it.  I never thought of myself as outdoorsy or adventurous until this relationship.  I wasn't good at compromise or telling someone that I appreciated them until him.  There are so many things I gained from dating him and the fact that he ended it brusquely doesn't change that.

Thinking about it this morning, maybe he wanted to get all of that out of his house because these things were signs of me.  Maybe it's just as hard on him.  Maybe he learned things from me.  Maybe he thought if he packed and sent all my stuff in a box, he was packing the memories too.   

Endings beget beginnings.  Getting my stuff back was the true end, so now, in theory, the real beginning can happen. 

~j