slbuhatin
11/23/08, 04:32 PM
MY MOTHER and I had an argument recently over a seemingly insignificant shoebox. It occurred one weekend as she was getting rid of the clutter that had accumulated in our storeroom. I was busy fixing my closet that had turned out to be a total disaster. You see, I have this bad habit of not putting back my clothes after picking out what I would wear on a particular day. Weekends are the most convenient time for me to put some order in my pathetic closet.
After folding clothes or hanging them for an hour, I went out of my room to take a rather late breakfast. Suddenly, something caught my attention. It was lying by its lonesome beside our trash bin. The poor thing must have been asking why it ended up in that miserable place.
I rushed to my mother to ask her if she had any idea how precious that shoebox was to me. She said she didn’t know.That shoebox has been with me since I was 12. When I first got hold of it, I had no idea that I would be keeping it for so many long years.
But then I didn’t know that I would develop an obsession with letters. I remember that when we were in 6th grade, my best friend and I wrote each other letters even though we saw each other every single class day. Every other day, we would drop by our school’s mail service to retrieve the letters we had written to each other. What silly sixth graders we were!
As the letters started piling up on my study table, I wondered where I would keep them. When I saw the shoebox in my mother’s drawer, I knew I had found the answer. Through the years, my shoebox has held mementos and memories of my past. It used to hold only my treasury of letters from friends and even foes, but as I grew older, I began to stack up on knickknacks that would remind me of days gone by.
The shoe box is, in fact, my Pandora’s box. Unlocking it may not exactly result in catastrophe but it will unleash a whole lot of emotions—joy and sadness, hope and fear, anger and frustration, to name a few. Going through the contents of this box never fails to bring a smile to my face on most occasions. But there are times when it brings tears to my eyes. Every item in it has a story to tell.
After folding clothes or hanging them for an hour, I went out of my room to take a rather late breakfast. Suddenly, something caught my attention. It was lying by its lonesome beside our trash bin. The poor thing must have been asking why it ended up in that miserable place.
I rushed to my mother to ask her if she had any idea how precious that shoebox was to me. She said she didn’t know.That shoebox has been with me since I was 12. When I first got hold of it, I had no idea that I would be keeping it for so many long years.
But then I didn’t know that I would develop an obsession with letters. I remember that when we were in 6th grade, my best friend and I wrote each other letters even though we saw each other every single class day. Every other day, we would drop by our school’s mail service to retrieve the letters we had written to each other. What silly sixth graders we were!
As the letters started piling up on my study table, I wondered where I would keep them. When I saw the shoebox in my mother’s drawer, I knew I had found the answer. Through the years, my shoebox has held mementos and memories of my past. It used to hold only my treasury of letters from friends and even foes, but as I grew older, I began to stack up on knickknacks that would remind me of days gone by.
The shoe box is, in fact, my Pandora’s box. Unlocking it may not exactly result in catastrophe but it will unleash a whole lot of emotions—joy and sadness, hope and fear, anger and frustration, to name a few. Going through the contents of this box never fails to bring a smile to my face on most occasions. But there are times when it brings tears to my eyes. Every item in it has a story to tell.