Feeling

My husband and I recently moved into a new home. This past weekend, he stopped by our old house one last time to clean out any remaining junk before the new owners move in. I gave him explicit directions to trash anything he found of mine (I grew up with a BIG TIME hoarder and it's not a trait I adopted - if I haven't used an item in six months, it gets tossed), so I was surprised when he returned toting an old, forgotten box bearing my name in faded, black Sharpie. Our conversation went something like this:

ME: That box looks like it started decomposing ten years ago. That can't be a good sign!

HUSBAND: You're gonna want to take a look inside.

ME: You were supposed to trash my stuff! I can't deal with unpacking another box right now. If I see one more packing peanut, I will stab my eye out with a fork!

MY SON (in the background): COOL!

HUSBAND: You're impossible.

ME: Okay, okay! Just don't make me touch the box. (There was a spider nest adhered to the outside.)

I opened the box. Inside, I found bow ties from two of my prom dates - 1995 and 1996! I found high-school graduation announcements, old and intimate and hilarious letters from friends, cross-country medals, all of my A.P English essays, a short story I wrote inspired by Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, awful, awful poetry, yearbooks, the strand of fake pearls my grandmother insisted I wear to graduation that I secretly plotted to light on fire, my SONY Walkman, and lots and lots of photographs of long-lost souls who shaped my teen years in important, meaningful ways.

Had my husband thrown out the box, I might never have noticed it had gone missing. Nothing in that box is vital to me on a day-to-day basis. And yet, the memories that each of those objects inside sparked are priceless. Little pieces of me that seem like a lifetime away, floating unnoticed for so long in my mind and now helping me remember what it feels like to be a teen. What it feels like to fall in love for the first time. What it feels like to stand up for one friend and betray another--and to feel deep regret in some tender place in my heart over it. Most days, that's what being an author means: feeling. And trying to figure out how to put emotion properly into a story so the reader feels it too.

It's often said that the story chooses the writer, and I believe that. But I also believe the opposite. The writer chooses the story in every step and misstep she takes a long the way, every choice and consequence leaving an impression hidden away to be surreptitiously found and used at some future point.

Cuz all the single ladies hang out at Wal-Mart on Valentine's Day.

Running my first 10k with besties Jenny and Heather. We took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd!

Church Halloween party '94. We swapped uniforms. (Um, is there a fifth hand in the picture?)

Basketball sophomore year. Worst decision of my teen years. I'm so traumatized...I can't even talk about it.

-Becca