I find it in the attic, lying in an old moving box from my university days, some 30-years ago...

I recall bringing it with me when I moved from home at 17 and into my first apartment, and I suppose it ended up in this cardboard box, along with my old hiking gear, when I headed off to get my degree.

I've moved around a few times since then; been in different relationships here and there, almost got married once, but most of the time just hanging around looking for my next adventure in life, until I finally settled down and planted some roots.

I suppose this house has it's memories too, since Grandpa built it when he got married just before the first big war. An old box of timber this house, keeping its history and memories hidden away, just like this cardboard box in front of me.

So, I pull the thing out of the corner, dragging it's worn bottom along the creaky attic floor and sit down beside it. I see some old masking tape strips lying loose on the sides, with the word “Living room” on one side and “Study” on the other, both crossed out in scribbly swaths of black marker. Then there's this newer tape running along the top with the word “Attic” on it. And here you are Mr. Box, exactly where I said you were going to end up, but I really didn't expect that it would have been this long. Sorry box.

And here we are, so, I take my scissors and cut along the length of the tape and both lids slowly release upwards an inch or two and I see some dust puff up from their openings, like a sigh of relief. Haha, hardly not.

I bend both the lids all the way back and see right away that I'll need more light, so, with a creaky grunt of discomfort, I get up off the floor and head down and get Grandma's old floor lamp from the study. I set it up beside the box and Hmmm... 30Watt bulb, Ok, that'll have to do, cause I'm not going up and down all those stairs again looking for a 60 :/

I reluctantly go and plug the cord into the wall and then walk back and turn the little switch, and the lamp lazily casts its dim light across the dusty floor and along the slanted attic walls. My shadow covers half of the room, like a giant, clumsy troll, as I settle down in front of the box and bend back the lids again.

And here we have it, underneath my old dune hiking jacket, tucked in between some hiking gear. The box of boxes.

I look at it for a while, without touching it, it's outer, silvery, surface reflecting the dim light from above. Memories that were lost, suddenly appear in front of me again. An odd tingling feeling bubbles up from somewhere distant inside me. The apprehension of opening that box, seeing that letter and then opening that particular window of my past, flutters by.

I slowly pick up the metal box with both my hands, and I seem to feel the memories moving inside it; curiosity, warmness, suppressed excitement, uncertainty and hidden things, perhaps darker things, yearning to come out and breath life again. I take a short breath, and let out a long sigh... and open its lid.

As I look inside, I see memories in different shapes and forms, filling up the volume of its metallic walls, some are randomly tossed together, while others are in neat piles. As I look at its contents, I see the letter, and my heart skips a short beat. But then, I see a photo peeking out from behind that old toy soldier that I got on my 1st birthday. “Umm... Soooo, Me, what part of my past am I about to look at now?” Am I really ready for this?

I pick up the old photo and look at its faded colors, realizing that I'm using a different set of eyes and emotions right now, compared to then, yet its image tugs on the feelings of its past, challenging me; Who was I back then, really? I thought I knew; I had an idea of who I was, but it doesn’t seem to stick on me right now. That’s not who I am today, yet at the same time, it is.

I slowly turn it back and forth to gain more light on its surface, trying to make out who that figure really is. It's Me of course, I know that, but yet my former Me, an old Me, a hard-to-grasp type of Me.

I pause and glance along the attic walls and see Great Aunt Alice's old floor mirror leaning awkwardly in a corner, half hidden in the shadows. If I got up and looked at Me now, what would I see? Certainly what I am now, but also, part of what I was back then, except with wrinkles and a dusting of gray hair exposing my bygone years.

I look back into my silver box and suddenly sorrows, guilt and remorse crawl up from the past and start spilling out around me, demanding their place in my present world. “Look at Me!” they yell, as they start bleeding their anguish into the cracks of the floor, screaming at me to fix the problems of the past, heal the hurts and correct for the injustices that I've dumped on to others and others have dumped on to me.

Yet, I am both helpless and worthless to them. I can't mend their pain anymore then I can mend the cause for it.

Time is forever flowing forward, and every second that I breath, will push these memories further behind me, making them harder to reach, harder to understand, and even more impossible to fix. They're no longer Me, the Me of today. They were a Me before, but now, they're just a pile of thoughts, emotions and feelings that've been stuck in a silver box in an attic of forgotteness.

So, I scoop up all this anguish stuff and put it back into my box-of-time-past, and shut its silvery lid.

I slowly put it (and them) back into their dark and hidden, secret place, beyond the mountainous trails of my life and at the bottom of this cardboard coffin. I gently fold and place my hiking jacket on top of them and close the cardboard lids.

I look at that old mirror again and slowly realize that what I was then, what I felt and experienced back then, both good and bad, helped form me to what I am today.

I curiously find myself content with that thought, so I take some new tape, strap it across the top of the moving box and write “Former Me” and then push it back into the corner of my mind, turn off the light, and go down the stairs.