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When I was 11 or so, I made this box I called the Memory Box (genuis, eh?) where I put everything that I thought was meaningful and important in my life.  These things included my first gift from a boy - the wrapper of a chocolate easter egg, angsty poetry dedicated to the evils of men, a multitude of buttons I collected that marked my beliefs during the time, provocative photos of me (see I’ve been a camgirl all my life!) and other silly little mementos.  I would regularly pull out the box and sift through them, giggling here and there, sighing here and there, groaning here and there…  But of course, as I got older, there became way too many “important life altering” moments in my life that I no longer collected things in my Memory Box and my later-in-life mementos became scattered throughout my home and later thrown away.  And now, I am at a phase in my life where every little memory is important to me and I wonder if my little brain can manage it all without a box to put them in.  And when I try to recall my previous memories, they seem to come to me in a haze, like a dream and vaguely there.

Will I ever remember the time-

when I finally felt respected from my sisters because I pulled the best prank on one of them?  How while we were in the bathroom she was too short to reach the string for the light and asked me to check if the toilet seat cover was down and I purposely told her it was and laughed hysterically when she dunked her foot in toilet water?

when I used to wrap my blue blankie around my neck and pretend I was a superhero and jump off the arm of my couch?

when I first fell in love and danced in the dark with my then boyfriend to “Finally Found Love” until the headlights of my parent’s car broke through the window blinds and he had to sneak out through the yard and jump several fences?

when I packed my things once and for all and left home and somehow managed to survive on my own for the first two years?

when I met Otto and kissed him halfway on the lips before the train came while wondering “what the hell am I doing?”

when I first started in the career I am in now and felt amazed and humbled at what I was able to accomplish with a child with a disability?

These memories are barely there and I wish I could remember every moment in vivid detail but slowly, my younger image of Otto, of my first student, of my sisters, of my first love, have lost form, have lost their voice, have lost their setting…and all I have is this vague recollection of why I am who I am today.