Graf #5 Things

Graf 5 Things

I have a box of “things”. I have kept them from my years of high school. They sit in the old cardboard Avon box in the bottom of my closet. I go through them once in a while to stir up old memories.
There is my white graduation cap and gown. They aren’t so white now they have yellowed a little with age and they are wrinkled from being folded for so long. They bring back the memory of my three best friends whom I spent my entire senior year with. We worked together, partied together, learned to drive together and slept at each others houses even during the school week. I only talk with one of those friends now and that only happens a few times a year. It’s funny how people grow apart after high school.
In my cardboard box is also a stack of papers that I wrote in English class. My poetry and a few short stories with A’s on the top written in red. There is also my prized critical. It took me almost a month to write that monster twenty page paper. I loved every minute of it. I enjoyed reading the old books about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table even though getting through Tennyson’s book was a little tedious.
There is my high school letter and all my pins for it. From playing soccer to graduation with honors. I was more a geek than jock. I loved my homework and studying, as much as I loved to smoke and get trashed on the weekends.
There are my old yearbooks full of all those cryptic notes from my friends on the blank pages. There are also the old standbys “have a great summer” and “call me” from people I can hardly remember. There are all the black and white photos of my classmates. I circled all my crushes that I couldn’t get the nerve to talk to and I X’d off all the faces of my ex boyfriends. I wonder what they are all doing now. Are they happy? Do they have good lives?
On the bottom of the box is a set of fuzzy pompoms from Happy Wheels. I used to go there roller skating every Sunday. I never did get very good at it but I remember the good times I had with my cousin trying to learn how to skate backwards or doing the “limbo” and falling flat on our asses. I remember the boy I met there and how I had such a huge crush on him.
It’s funny how we associate “things” with our memories. Just looking at them brings us back to the place and time we acquired them. They don’t just bring back the memories; they bring back the feelings, smells, and voices of our past. I’ll never part with my old cardboard Avon box, even though the things inside aren’t valuable in monetary terms, they are invaluable to me.