A Welcomed Interruption

Nothing interesting ever happens here. It’s the same old same old, day in and day out. She goes through her days knowing what’s going to happen next before it even has occurred. She’s been stuck in this monotonous worn-out routine for what feels like forever now. Trapped in this little-bitty, nothing-ever-happens-here town for pretty much her whole life. She wakes up and she can play out the entirety of her day without even getting out of bed; some days she wonders why it is that she even bothers to get up when this is the case. If she’s honest, she can play out the day to the T before she even goes to bed the night before, and when she’s at this point in her day, it always feels as though she were just here, not that it had been twenty-four hours prior. “Although, what is time anymore anyway?” she muses.

She’s not convinced she hasn’t been in some sort of a weird time loop for quite some time now. She can walk around this house, walk around this yard, and save for the slight variations in growth of the plants she meticulously placed, or that have always been there since she’s been around, which is, of course, inevitable, everything remains just as it has always been with each passing day. Nothing is interesting or unexpected. Even the growth she observes in the plants is nothing new and fails to surprise her or fill her with more than the slightest feeling of wonder anymore.

Her routine could use some sprucing up, to say the least, but every time that she tries to add in a new hobby or prepare a different meal, it still feels scripted somehow, as though that move were predictable for her character and therefore, still not exciting. She’s considered moving around some furniture, rearranging her knick-knacks, for a change in perspective or the scenery of her indoor space, but there’s always some reason why it seems impractical: the bed is on this side of the room because the only functioning outlet is over here, the dresser can only fit in so many spaces and once one piece of furniture is locked in to a location, it seems to do the same to another, and the next, until the whole room simply must stay oriented in the fashion in which it already has been. This saves her work really, so it turns out to be a relief that she need not go through all the hassle that mixing things up would necessitate.

Today, she walks across her room after finishing getting ready, about to move on to the room that the next portion of her day happens in, when something catches her eye. “That’s odd,” she thinks. “I don’t remember that being there, or at least, I can’t usually see it. One of the cats must have exposed the corner when they came out from hiding under the bed as they always do when they get scared for some reason or when they’re taking one of their many daily naps. The bed skirt must have gotten stuck up on the edge of this box when they slithered out from underneath the safety of the mattress.” With the mystery of this suspicious box’s intrusion on her otherwise apparently normal day seemingly solved, she decides she’ll move on to the next step in her routine. She begins to head for the kitchen to prepare her breakfast to enjoy at the table while she catches up on the news until she has had enough of it and moves on to reading something more enjoyable, something that feels like a more fulfilling and better use of her time. She doesn’t know why she even bothers with reading the news anyway, it only upsets her and she feels powerless to do anything to fix the problems of the world, but, well, it’s just what she does, so she sticks with it, like everything else.

Just as she’s about to leave the room, the thought occurs to her, she has no idea what is in that package that appears to be wrapped in brown paper, or when she put it there either, come to think of it. Strange. She knows every detail about this house like the back of her own hand. But not this box. This box is confounding her previously all-inclusive knowledge of her home. She comes to the conclusion that she cannot possibly move on with her day without knowing what the story is with this suspicious package wrapped in brown paper. She walks over to her bed, the sense of confusion swelling within her. She reaches down and pulls out the box so that it is entirely exposed, the bed skirt falling back down into place, where it always is, evidently covering up the existence of this box on a day-to-day basis. She turns it around a few times to see if there are any notable markings on it that would give anything away as to what its contents are or when or how it got here. Nothing. Even more curious. She realizes that the only way she is going to find out is if she opens it, so she does just that. She peels up the tape at the seams of the wrapping and slides out the box underneath.

The box doesn’t appear to be anything of any significance, just an old shoe box of some sort. Still perplexed, she lifts the lid. Instantly tears start forming in the corners of her eyes as an enormous smile, one like she hasn’t made in years it seems, breaks out across her face. She remembers now. This box is one she filled with some of her favorite and most precious memories from great times she’s had with her friends and loved ones, back when these types of outings, events and hangouts were things that she would do. She placed it under the corner of her bed when she got back here and cleaned and reorganized everything that fateful March. She had hoped it would bring her smiles and happiness, reliving those beautiful memories each time she looked at these photographs and felt ticket stubs between her fingertips or held signed merchandise in her hands. She’s sure that it would have done just that many times over these past difficult months, if only she had remembered to remember that it was here. She could have really used it then, but she found it just in time. If she’s certain of one thing, it’s that she will revisit this box frequently now.

She’s thankful that this disruption occurred to jolt her out of the funk she’s been in for far too long. How refreshing this has been. She feels rejuvenated again, ready to take on the projects she’s been amassing ideas for but hasn’t had the motivation or the drive to actually do as of late. This box reminded her of who she was before, but more than that, that that person is who she still is. She is fun-loving, she likes to do things and fill her days with the unexpected and she needs to too to thrive. What she's been doing, without this box, is surviving and she’s glad she has so that she could get to this point where she’s ready to truly live, maybe fully for the first time in her life so far. She’s relieved to know she’s not who she thought she was this morning, she’s who she always knew she was deep inside.

She smiles back at her face in a photograph lying in the top of the box and closes the lid. She pushes the box back under the corner of her bed, so she can look back through each item later, in more detail. Then she thinks better of it. Deciding to set herself up for success this time, she places the box in a location of prominence - where it belongs - on her dresser, where it cannot be missed. That night she will return to her room and take a much-needed trip down memory lane, and she will end her journey a happy traveler. Right now, she heads downstairs, grabs something to eat, brings it out onto the porch, and enjoys her meal while soaking in the sun rays and listening to the birds sing. No news around. Then she calls up a friend she hasn’t talked to in a while for no good reason other than the excuses they always make, and she takes a walk. This day is her most fulfilling yet, and it’s only just the beginning.