My life can be explained as a shoebox, a collection of unseemingly related objects that can each tell a story. In my box there is a movie stub, a playbill to Peter Pan, a rock, a broken watch, and a blanket. To the average person, it seems like a bunch of unimportant, unrelated, junk. To me, it is the key to my past.
The movie stub is significant because it is from the first movie that I saw, Star Wars. It was not even a first run, or a first release, it was one of those movies at the park in the summer that you could go and watch. The ticket is not even a receipt. It is a commemorative one that they gave out since it was the first movie that season. I kept it because that was the last time that I saw my aunt that took me that night. She thought my cousin and I would enjoy the film. A few days later, she disappeared. I kept that ticket as a memory of how important she is in my life.
The Playbill to Peter Pan was also a first time experience. It was from the first time I saw a play. It was when the play came to town over Thanksgiving weekend. I was five and remember being so impressed by the flying Pan. Since that experience, I have always enjoyed seeing live productions, especially with my grandmother, who brought me that day.
The rock is from a picnic that I went on with my friend, Billy, to the park. We had been best friends since I could remember, and he was moving out of town. It was the last time that we spent together before his move, although we kept in touch and even travelled to each other’s homes over vacations over the years. We were skipping rocks and he found this particular one. We both thought the veins looked really neat, and then we found another one that looked almost identical, so we both kept them to remember each other and that day.
The broken watch is from the day I learned to ride a two-wheeler bicycle. Like most kids, I fell many times. My friend Billy’s dad was helping me by running behind the bike and holding me up. When he let go, I was doing well, until I turned and looked back. I fell, and got cut by the watch. I got seven stitches on my watch from where it dug into me. Although I no longer can see the scar, I keep the watch to remind me of that accomplishment because I was so proud of myself for learning to ride the bike that day.
The blanket is pure sentiment. I do not remember using it. I have seen it in pictures. I was covered in it when I came home from the hospital as a newborn. I slept with it as a toddler. I have been told that I could not sleep without it. When we were moving when I was a child, my mother found it and gave it to me, so I just put it in the box. I guess I just like to remember the security I had as a child from having it with me.
Such simple, inanimate objects, with no connection, thrown in a box mean nothing to others. They seem to have no connection to others. But, to me, they tell the story of my past. I do not know how they fit into me wanting to be a pharmacist, if they do at all. For me, they are special memories.
