Do You Have a Forever Box?

After getting through yet another holiday season and starting another new year with hopes of better things to come, of course one of the things that usually is a staple of kicking off the new year is putting back all the holiday decorations. Each year I always take a little extra time to look at all the special ornaments that have hung on our tree for that brief time during the holidays. I have many special one's that I hold dear. I have three that a very dear friend I worked with gave me. She has now passed on so they hold an even special place. The bell is tarnished and the snowflake was damaged one year when the Christmas tree mysteriously feel over but even those flaws are special. Also special are the ornaments I have collected on travel trips throughout the years. From Plymouth, MA to New Orleans, Hawaii, Alaska and most recently Washington D.C. and this past year a Corvette ornament from our yearly car trip. When I pull them out of the boxes each year I always remember the instance from whence they came.

All of this nostalgia also made me think about all the treasure boxes I have had over the course of my life. My first was a jewelry-like box that my grandpa gave me one year for Christmas. I kept a few trinkets and my small diary inside. Many years later after my grandpa's death my grandma gave me his black-lacquer/pearl boxes. A small square sized box still sits on a cabinet with a pair of dice inside that reminds me of his love for Las Vegas. A round larger box I gave to David many years ago and he keeps some little mementos of his own, and the larger of the boxes was almost lost to me many years ago when our house was broken into and those involved tried to pry open this box, not being smart enough to know that it was not locked. This box contains letters from people important to me that either have passed,or lost touch with. I also have some other special things inside but each time I open it my mind goes back in several directions. Be it the time in the Orient that my grandpa had in WWII, or the first pen pal letter I received from Lisette in Sweden. All of them bring me to different times in my life.

I started reading a book recently called The Forever Box. I haven't gotten into it very far but the first few pages hit hard. I won't give it all away (because I don't know what's to come) but everyone should have a Forever Box. I think so far the prolific items are on the front of the book under the title is "The things we love are the things that last"...and if that doesn't hit home hard "long after our ashes have been scattered to the wind and our bones have turned to dust, it is entirely possible for whole pieces of ourselves--our histories, and the depth of our own unique existence--to remain behind for our surviving loved ones to pore over and to ponder. It is the last remnants--the ones that we purposefuly decide to preserve--that offer the generations who comeafter us tangible evidence that we even existed at all, and that our years on this earth counted for something positive and pleasing.. Kristin Clark Taylor how touching these words are!!

In just reading the first chapter of this book it has made me use this idea of a Forever Box for a theme I plan on using this year in my blog. Pick one item per day either from my long ago past or maybe just recently and try to share that experience. I guess technically it will be my blog in-box and it will be forever on the internet for all to read, but I still have my physical treasure/forever boxes that have memories of other's and my own to always keep close to my heart.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I will keep this going all year.