IN MY SENIOR YEAR of high school I was feeling trapped in a box. I was starting to feel like I was going nowhere. Then I got dead set on being a beautician. If I have to be in a box, an office cubicle wasn’t the box I wanted. I figured if my box was a high end salon my opportunities could be endless. I figured if I played my scissors right, my box could have no borders. That was my dream, and that was my way out of Bremerton!
At the time there was a beauty school in downtown Bremerton. I was a poor kid, with a single working parent so some people at my mom’s church passed around a box, and helped us pay for my schooling. My senior year I took half a day at Bremerton High School, and half day at the beauty school. The classes were a half a day-five days a week, but it took all of my time. It sucked all the life out of me, and my hands hurt constantly. I couldn’t go to the mall , and hangout, I couldn’t sit at Denny’s and drink coffee all night, I couldn’t go to all the parties I wasn’t invited to.
Worst of all… I couldn’t follow my skater boyfriend around while him, and his friends skated parking lots, and did graffiti around town. Let’s be honest… I wasn’t destined to travel the world doing hair like I day-dreamt about. But I was destined to be a”Beauty School Drop Out” just like “Frenchie” from Grease. What I didn’t realize at the time was that beauty school was forging future relationships with the girls that were more like “Rizo” than “Frenchie”, and a couple boys who were more like John Travolta than I realized at the time.
These were the people that eventually showed me that Seattle was just a ferry boat ride away. The big city, with it’s big dance clubs, big parties, big concerts, big buildings, and even bigger boxes. Over my years of commuting round trip from Bremerton to Seattle I have tried different modes of transportation. The Seattle city bus was just another box, but it was free so I used that when it was convenient until one morning, on my way to work, I sat in someone’s urine filled seat. That right there ruined my metro life. My next option seemed to be a bicycle. I figured it was one less box. I would say about three weeks into being one of those bike commuters my bicycle was stolen. My bike was locked to a parking meter while I was drinking after work in Pioneer Square. Yes it sucked losing my $500 bicycle, but luckily it was a short walk to the ferry. So at like midnight after five, seven or ten pints… It was probably a blessing that someone jacked my bike. I had already crashed the thing twice in three weeks. I had all the bumps and bruises of a bike messenger, or better yet one of the characters in Fight Club, but in real life I had what I swore I never wanted: I had a nine to five job in a box on Fifth Avenue.
More than once I have gotten so sick of commuting that I have convinced myself moving to the city will eventually save me time, and money. It never works out that way. Fact of the matter is it always ends up the complete opposite. More often than not I end up back home in Bremerton, sitting in a box shaking off the weight, and expense of some dead beat. Whether it be a dead beat lover, dead beat roommate or dead beat friend… I always seem to be paying off someone else’s shit in the end. Even more insulting is I always seem to end up with a box of their stuff after they are gone. It could be a cigar box of drug paraphernalia, a shoe box full of old pictures, and drug paraphernalia. But most likely… It’s a beat up old moving box containing all the above along with some old clothes, and some old love letters to or from the person before me. My friend Cherry once told me that after you die your entire life fits into one box. I guess I should take that as a sign that as soon as I end up with some unpaid bills, and a box of your shit…
You are now dead to me!
That being said there is two sides to every four sided box.
There is a box that just might be the worst box of them all.
It’s that dusty box of your own stuff that you haven’t looked through in years. One day rummaging through that old dusty box you find that other box containing items you thought your relative, your lover, your roommate or friend had stolen from you. In that` old box of YOUR stuff, is that little box of stuff that was so important it ended the relationship you once had.
Now the so called moral of the story is this …
Don’t collect boxes!
Make, and collect as many memories as you can. Before you die or get dementia. // SARA DAVID
