Two days ago I started packing my life into boxes.

Watching the clutter gather behind me, I was starting to feel trapped. There was and is too much to take into account even if most of it was in all the physical things I collected. It wasn't until I checked the shoe box of cards and stubs that some of the clarity I was seeking came back.

I had meant to go to bed early tonight; instead I unearthed tens or even a hundred card with a bewildered sense of amazement. There are so many people who have filtered into and out of my life in the years I've lived here by myself. Some of these friendships have remained solid, and others I'm straining to maintain. I wondered what happened to love at the small papery mountain of love letters that I had never answered because I was incapable of writing about anything or anyone but myself, so I never did.

Sometimes I like to delude myself into thinking that happiness is only a few years behind me instead of me, until the memories kept in this box remind me that until a few years ago I used to be dreadfully lonely. It took these webs of friendships, spidery thin and insistently clingy to bring me out of my fears and reluctance. It's time to stop longing for a past I fancied out of nothing, since it's only holding me back.