‘Reflecting, Releasing, and Becoming’
- Jan 13
- 3 min read
By Di Kersey
If I imagine my heart as a box, I can open and examine it. A wooden chest, with the old-fashioned padlock, and a lovely shaped iron key that hangs on the back of the door, out of sight. There are not just papers and photographs within but also scratches on the soft wood on the inside of the lid. Names, scored insults, scarring, points kept, and slights engraved.
There are rejection letters, thank you notes, awards, and missed opportunities.
Photographs of past friends, and long-dead flowers. As I rifle through, I notice the further down into the box I get, the more yellowed and brittle the papers become, as the petals of the flowers around them disintegrate. Photographs have curling edges and age stains, yet a few pieces of paper remain crisp and white, and some of the photographs move like miniature videos. They make me feel hopeful when I touch them. I carefully tease them out so as not to damage the other fragile pieces, and I settle in to read, and watch. I start to smile.
My eyes prick with tears of gratitude, of hope, of recognition, connection, understanding and of knowing, because I hold in my hand the true essence of who I am. Unblemished, presentable, loving, and taken care of, and I remember she’s still in there. She remains complete.
The other papers and photographs are crumbling, disintegrating and ageing, and I find they no longer have value or power.
Most of them are almost impossible to read. The writing is so faded, the paper so brittle that some of the older ones turn to dust in my hand. There is a gleam in the corner, and as I carefully excavate my way to it, I notice it is a shiny new gold padlock with a gorgeous little key nestled in its keyhole, and it makes me wonder. Was it here all along? Could I choose the bright shiny thing to gently protect myself, rather than the chunky iron lock that a few struggled to break open, with the key that was not easy to find? As I gently pick my way through the chest, I feel the disintegration in my hands, leaving exposed the shiny white documents, my real self, and I wonder if that was the true necessity of the brown crumbling pages. Have they cushioned the bright white ones and protected them until they were ready to be seen again?
I find myself no longer in need of the dust, so I take out the crisp pages, lay them carefully to the side with the tiny new lock on top of them, pick up the box and shake it out. Taking it outside, I release that dust to the wind, back into the air, back into the world away from me. I return inside and reread the bright, clean pages, and not only smile; I laugh.
The tears are welcome as I rediscover the woman that I am. Putting my tiny lock back on the box, I swallow the key. I’ll fill the box every day, every chance I get. I choose what to put in there. I choose what I take within and add to my collection, but mostly I choose those who’ll get to wait long enough for me to be able to access the key so that they can help fill the box too.
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