The box

What does one do when you come across a box of your significant others past relationships? An intriguing dilemma. I know at least two of my closest friends have been faced with comparable scenarios and both handled it by snooping 'til their eyes bled. Can you blame them? I dunno... It's entirely tempting to delve inside, maybe hoping to find something to make you feel really good about yourself and your relationship... or maybe hoping to find something to nit-pick about yourself and your relationship?

Despite being deliriously happy, and not seeming to have any preoccupations about the ins and outs of former loves, I challenge any woman to stare down a box teeming with pictures and memorablia of your fella's ex and walk away without a second thought or glance. This is the challenge I faced. Having come across a random box in the closet and innocently asking what was inside, my fella tells me it's full of things he "didn't know what to do with." You're kidding yourself if you think this doesn't pertain to you. Of course this box exists. Everyone has one. The pictures you don't want or need, but don't feel quite right throwing away. Those little keepsakes that aren't worth any money but are laden with sentimental value. In theory there are no longer ties to these items and they can now be discarded without regret...now. But at one time they were put on holding pattern in that box... a purgatory of sorts.

To look or not to look, that is the question... Ironically, I turned to the very two friends whose track records speak of what their choice of action would be. Perhaps these were the best people to discuss the matter with because they have the most practical insight. Both advised against my looking. Why open myself up to misgivings or insecurities that wouldn't otherwise present themselves? The comparisons... is she prettier than me? were they happier than we are?

Though I appreciate my friends' input, I knew that it wasn't actually a question of whether I should look. I wanted to look, period. And I mean--he knew I knew about the box, it was left in the office in plain sight. One may think that entitles me to look inside, right? I disagree. I decided that what was most important was that I asked him how he would feel about it, at the risk of upsetting him.

I could not have received a more perfect response. With poise and grace, love and trust, honesty and openness, he tells me, "You are welcome to know anything and everything that is or was a part of my life..."

I would love to say that like in some dramatized television show that that response set me free and enabled me to walk away from the box without looking inside. Wouldn't that be poetic?
Instead, I opened the box. I looked through the pictures, I read the notes, I looked at the keepsakes. I compared her physique to mine, I considered whether they had more fun than we do. To what end? I love my fella. I am so grateful that he is my fella. I hope I will never be the contents of a similar box in that same closet. All in all, I am fine with what is in that box. Afterall, I have one too.