Box Therapy - Recycled and a Bit Reused

RECYCLED:  So this was something I wrote to a friend back in 2005: 

It is so strange how powerful boxes can be.  I just recently did some box therapy myself!

VERY Brief synopsis:
02/14/03   Quit my job of 7 yrs and left the Midwest for the first time in my entire life to move to L.A. with a male addict I had fallen madly in love with. He had 3 yrs clean, I had 5 yrs clean.
05/03   He relapses on heroin in LA the first week of May, overdoses the last week of May. After bringing him back from the dead, we decide that we need to go to his hometown in Montana, leaving most of my worldly belongings (furniture) in CA.
11/03   He starts using and abusing Methadone.
01/04   His parole is revoked and he goes back to prison.
02/07/04   I get back to KC with only what I can fit in my car, leaving my "pruned" keepsakes in Montana in storage.
05/04   Travel to Montana and bring back "the most important" things and put them in storage in KC.
02/05/05   Move back into my house, (that my renters had trashed) and finally have what's left of "me" all in one spot.

I was so excited to start opening up boxes, after not having any of my stuff for a year! The first box I opened had a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope on top. My "tools of the trade" of codependance that I used when he started abusing the Methadone. Memories of sitting on the side of the bed checking his vitals to make sure he was still alive paralyzed me right there amongst the boxes I had just moments before been elated to have. I went from joy, to fear, to anger, to a desperate sadness in a matter of moments. I found myself sitting on the floor bawling uncontrollably. I decided I didn't need ANY of that stuff. I didn't care WHAT was in there, I was taking it all out to the curb. I was going to shut the damn box, tape up the misery inside of it, take it to the curb and MOVE ON! I can get more stuff. Fuck it. Then it came to me that this was something I had to face. I had too many times in the past just closed up bad feelings in a box and said I didn't need to deal with it. I had suffered for not doing what needed to be done and then wondered why the hell I was still feeling the consequences years later. I decided that this time, I MUST open each and every box. Take out the individual pieces of me. Hold them in my hands. Feel them physically, emotionally, spiritually. Then and only then could I make the decisions on what was ready for the curb. What no longer had a purpose and what was still a part of me.

Then and only then was I able to finally put some closure on the past two years of my life.  I made it back to KC with my clean time and my life. Both incredible gifts and miracles. And now I've finally come to a point in my life where I can honestly keep what I need and leave the rest...

REUSED:  Present times....

I have moved three times since then and kept less and less "property" everytime.  I have lost my home to foreclosure in an eerily parallel relationship choice, accept no quitting of my job, no moving across the country with a dash of lieing and unfaithfulness thrown in.  I still have boxes to unpack, seen and unseen, but I do so with more dilligence, more faith and less fear.  I have survived repeated box therapy and use less tape than I used to, although I've suffered some scarring fucking cardboard cuts that hurt like hell.  I don't know that I'll ever get to the point in my life where there are no boxes that need opened or closed, but I know that as each year passes, the desperation for either circumstance subsides.  Life is packing and repacking.  I am o.k. with that today.  :)