Aaliyah N. Winter

Under my bed, in an old Doc Martens shoebox, I keep my memories. 

Little papers, wrappers, brochures. Photos of old pets, family, people I don’t talk to anymore. Photos of myself. An old Harry Potter poster I got from the book fair when I was 9. A signed photo of Obama that I received after writing him asking about his dogs in the 3rd grade. 

Even the box is a memory! The memory of my first pair of Docs. A big, clunky pair of those classic black leather combat boots. I had walked around for days after, uncomfortable in the stiff leather. I felt like Frankenstein’s Monster. I’ve gotten used to them now, but I still sometimes feel like I did back then, fourteen years old with my first pair of “cool” shoes. The girl at the store had told me that I should start with the boots, move on to their Mary Janes after. I did exactly this.

The box is scuffed now, with pen marks and bows tied haphazardly on the corners. It is time for me to get rid of it. I've been putting this off for way too long, but it has to be done. I am an adult now, and it just won’t do to keep this mess of adolescence around. Sure, I could always keep it in my parent’s house when I move out, but part of me feels like that’s too extreme. 

It’s mine, just mine, and if it should be anywhere, it should be with me. 

But that just can’t be. It takes up space. It’s overflowing and paper is tipping over the edges. So, I have made it my mission to search through it. To unearth all those memories and relive them one last time before they get lost to time. I find it odd; I had made the effort to keep these things safe, but I hadn’t deemed them important enough to remember. 

The memories come back slowly, and I feel like an archeologist of my own past.
There is a sheet of paper full of numbers and emails. Scribbled girl’s names tell me who they belong to. It takes me a minute to place these names, but when I do, the memories rush back. These names belong to my 5th grade camp cabinmates. Sweet girls. Talkative and theatrical. We had so much fun. But clearly, they were forgettable to me. 

How could I forget? The camp dance, our first boy-girl dance. We all had secretly hoped that the cute counselor, the one with the floppy brown hair, would ask us to dance. Of course, he had not, instead focusing on the counselors his own age, one of which being our own counselor. She did not allow candy in the cabin, but there is an old sticky wrapper of a lollipop stuck to the back of this paper sheet. I must have found a way.

I find postcards from all the trips my family has gone on. Many from Hawaii. I had always picked out the ones I deemed most pretty. One depicts an unbelievably colorful coral and green-blue water, pretty fish and cool surfers. On the back of one I had scribbled a message to my then best friend. There’s no name on it to tell me who it was for, but oh, believe me, I know. Miss you! is written in wobbly pencil, the exclamation mark dotted with a heart. It leaves a pang in my chest, a feeling of guilt, though I can’t place why. 

These things cause more pain than they do happiness. I’m drowning in paper and objects. They all remind me of someone I used to be, something I used to have. Why did I think it was a good idea to keep any of this? This trash? Old anime sketches, newspaper clippings, terrible photos of me. This is absolutely embarrassing. 

I had meant to throw them away, really. But I found myself stacking everything carefully in a new box. This is a Converse box, new and pristine. I had told myself that I would go through it at a later date, when I had more time. Then I would throw it all away. 

The box sits in my closet now, on the top shelf above my shirts and sweaters. That box has stayed there for months now, and I keep forgetting my plans to organize it. 

I’ll get to it another time.