The Box

I found it today. A secret. A lie. A box filled with memories that I'd forgotten years ago.
Because I have the heat tolerance of a frost-bitten ice cube, I do my "spring cleaning" as soon as the temperature drops below 40 degrees. And while I was rooting through the mess of dust and spider webs beneath my bed (seriously, I've slept on top of all that for over a year now? How hasn't some monster insect crawled from the dark and eaten me alive in my sleep?), I found it. A white box. Rectangular. Tiny, delicate purple roses hand-painted around it. And the same quote interwoven among the thorns: "Love conquers all."
Oh, really!? It's that simple, everyone! You don't have to worry about not finding love, or the fact that you're slowly creeping into a life full of loneliness. Or, that the only thing meaningful you go home to at the end of a long, tiresome day are your three cats named Shones, Skittles and Julius... Or maybe that's just my life. But according to this tiny little box, "Love conquers all" of that, right?
Wrong!
Silently seething from the lies the world tries to stuff down the throats of children nowadays, I took a softer look at the box. And gingerly, I picked it up, shooed away the beastly spider waltzing toward my fingertips, and just gazed at it. Then, I realized exactly what I was holding. My most prized possession at fifteen years old.
My box. Every girl had one, right? A box to keep your most prized possessions and treasures. Something that would never tell your secrets. Odd trinkets and memories from years of my childhood. Slowly, I began looking through the contents. A ribbon. Innumerable pictures. A hand-drawn picture of my cat Skittles that, I thought, was award-worthy. And jadedly, I realized... I did believe what that box told me at fifteen. When everything was so simple and the world was such a wholesome, sweet, lovely and perfect place, before I felt heartbreak for the first time... Love really did conquer all. To an extent, we've all held that outlook and attitude at some point. Yes, you. Yeah, I'm talking to you. I'm talking to the girl who's just had her heart ripped out, thrown away, and danced on for the first time. I'm talking to the cynic who can't believe they're actually reading this blog about LOVE right now. And I'm talking to the aging multitude of single and fabulous women who think they're never going to find that special someone... that special anyone. And I'm talking to you, the reader whose tears just won't dry, you, who think you'll never heal, that you're going to just bleed to death with the unbearable pain of it all. I'm right here with you. Because what I'm about to tell you is going to hurt.
Love doesn't conquer all. The world has lied to you.
Well, I kept riffling through the box, digging deeper into the bottom. And soon, I found what I knew I had hidden deep in the heart of it.
Twenty-seven letters.
Love letters. Page upon innumerous page, hand written, tear stained. Letters filled with heartbreak and anguish, pain and loss, the shattered dream of this lonely dreamer. Letters to my first love. My first loss. Some a half page. Some over ten. Some of them proclaimed how love only defeats and destroys you, while others exuded exultant messages of how love, well, conquered all my doubts and fears.
It's ironic, almost, that I found this box today. Because today, I found out that the subject of all these letters, the man I was soooo in love with and, at fifteen, couldn't live without... today, I found out, that man is now happily married. To someone other than me. Living with another woman, sleeping in her arms, enjoying life and planning a family. Without me. With her.
And you know what? I'm okay. Because, losing him then seemed wholly earth-shattering. But you love and lose and move on and fall in love and fall down repeatedly, so much, and to be honest, I couldn't even tell you his middle name. I really don't even remember his birthday, or the color of his eyes, or even anything meaningful we ever talked about at all! Sad, right?
...Because that was an eternity ago. A different lifetime. And you want to know what I said when a mutual friend told me of his recent marriage?
"That's nice."
I didn't care! I moved on. It's the natural progression of heartbreak. You love, they leave, you heal, meet someone new, love them and lose them, and the nasty cycle continues until you meet Mr. Incredible. Unfortunately, there's no specialty store to go to and buy him.
Or maybe you've found the one you want... like I have now... and you lost him... like I've done. And you don't know what you did or what to do, or how to deal. Because, if you're anything like me, all you want is him back, and you'd do anything if he'd only call you, say your name, hold you, hug you, kiss you just ONE MORE TIME... Well, then you're right there with me. Because the subject of all those letters, who we'll call Mr. Letterbox... he didn't matter. I never knew I could love someone new like this. And I didn't know what real loss felt like until I lost MY Mr. Incredible. For privacy's sake... let's call him Ben. It's so tough. Impossible... Can love conquer this?
Well, < / ramble >. All I'm saying here is this: I got over Mr. Letterbox. And you can, too. Getting over Ben... well, I hope I never have to. Because I hope and pray every second of every single day that he'll come back to me... Or maybe, in the future, I'll meet someone even MORE incredible than Ben and realize that to say I loved him was ludicrous. (Like, I'm looking back now on those letters and thinking how silly I was for saying how much I couldn't live without him. I've been doing just fine.)
Well, it's time to get up, dust off, and press on. And it's time to break the first seal. I've never re-read any of those letters since the day I wrote them, but I think it's time. And I hope you'll continue to join me as I read the letters to the world here and find out what it really takes to move on.

XOXO,
Sarah