Climbing Out of the Box

byidb1977

196 followers

6 years ago

I finished moving from my house over approximately 500 miles; it was one of the most stressful events I have encountered thus far... Although stressful, there is a bittersweet sense of relief that it's finally over. I suppose that a lot of my life I'm kind of nostalgic, and part of me hates to "move on" or "leave things behind", but I'm also kind of happy to make a fresh start.

It was necessary for me to throw out many things in order to organize and simplify the move; coincidentally, this is a metaphor for how I'm doing the same for my life at present. One thing that I had not thrown away over the years is something that my friend's late mother had made for her before she passed away in 2011. Her mother was on her second bout of treatment with cancer, I guess she knew that there was a chance that she wouldn't survive. She made a memento of sorts for my friend, Colleen.

Colleen had lived with me for about 6 months several years back, and I guess she had just forgotten her mother's gift to her at my house. I couldn't throw it away because it wasn't mine to throw, although I had tried to contact her a few times over the years without success. I finally gave it one last shot earlier this month, and she was actually still in the same city.

She came by the house to pick it up, and she was so thankful. She figured that she had lost it forever and, in the process of making a fresh start of her own, she had changed her phone number and fallen off of the map for a while. She explained to me what had transpired in the past 5 years, and it was eerily similar to was I was currently going through. Thankfully, we're back in touch with one another and have been in contact daily since.

This trip is a perpetual reminder for me that just because something doesn't go the way that I expect, it still may turn out favorably in time, and that it's important not to lose hope.

The above picture reminds me of a story I read not so long ago about Pandora's Box. In this story, Pandora opened the lid of the box (jar/urn), and upon doing so, the seven deadly sins escaped before she had a chance to close it again. Pride, sloth, wrath, lust, gluttony, greed (avarice), and envy (I think that's right) were released again into existence. After closing the lid, she discovered that she did manage to keep something within the jar, and that was hope. I like this story because it reminds me never to lose hope in a given situation.

Until next time...

Ian

"Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches in the soul;

that sings the song without the words

and never stops--at all."

--Emily Dickinson