Sifting through the memories

I am in the process of going through 6 plastic tubs of stuff that have been in my garage for a long time. I am looking for pictures from high school but haven’t found too many. I think maybe they are in a different tub that is at my brothers’ house right now…or the one that is stored at my dads house in Kingfisher.  I am making very slow process because I keep running into things that I have long forgotten I even kept.

One envelope has a bunch of teeth in it. Apparently I saved Chris and Andy’s teeth as they fell out.  Why I don’t know. Maybe I was gonna make a mothers necklace out of them.   There were drawings from when the boys were little, lots of pictures, a bunch of cub scout stuff.  Each thing I pulled out of that box brought back a fond memory of my little boys who are all grown up now with lives of their own.  

Another box within the box holds several love notes that my ex (Chris and Andy’s dad) Mike wrote to me.  I had forgotten all about those.  Those held me up on my progress for quite some time as I read them and wondered how something so beautiful could have gone awry.  They are funny and sweet and silly notes from the beginning of our relationship.  There are notes written to me early in our marriage. There are notes written to me when I was pregnant with each of our sons.  And there are notes filled with so much hatred and rage (written during the divorce ) that they could peel your skin off.   Some of the words I wrote are just horrifying to read and his responses equally so.  What happened along the way to get us to that point?  It took a couple of hours to get through that box of notes and I am emotionally drained from the effort. 

Another box within a box holds letters and cards that I have received through the years that meant enough to me to hang onto.  What’s really sad is that I don’t even remember who some of the people are or when they were in my life.   What happened there? Did I move away, did they move away?  Was it just a flash in the pan friendship?  Very weird to read cards about how much you mean to someone and then go “who is that?”  Scary too in a way because you start to question your memory. 

I found a book called Peter and the Wolf in the box and I had to laugh because I remember how Chris went through a phase where he was afraid of everything and we put the book up because he wouldn’t sleep with it in his room!  I found Ninja Turtle cards and Power Ranger vcr tapes and Goosebump books.  All brought back precious memories of the boys when they were in that period of their childhood. 

I found an old diary that I started writing in the first day of 8^th Grade, my first day in Stillwater, OK.  Apparently I was madly in love with Scott Noble, Mark Friesen, David Worthington, and Robert Weeks that first year in Stillwater.   I loved band, hated home ec and Cheryl Cawley was my best friend.  It is quite hilarious to read some of my entries professing my undying love for these 13 year old boys.  Well until I moved on to the next one.  Such a fickle heart!   Oh for the days when you could simply write “do you like me, yes no maybe on a piece of paper and have your friend give it to the object of your affection.  If he circled yes, you were going steady.  You didn’t actually go anywhere though.  Actually, the match.com site has yes, no , maybe when they send you a new match next to the question Are you interested?  Guess some things never change.

Tomorrow I will dump another tub on the garage floor (so the spiders have a chance to run away) and sift through another batch of memories.  Each memento will be taken out, dusted off, and put back in the box.  Some will be good, some will be bad, some will make me laugh and some will make me sad.  All have shaped my life in some way, shape or form.   All are priceless..