The Big Red Box

Sometimes, I scare myself. Today I had one of those moments. I was wandering through The Container Store checking out what was on sale. Down one aisle I spotted a box, a big 12x17x3 red leather lidded taffeta lined box, on sale. After hemming and hawing, trying to convince myself to get the paperboard version that was a little less than half the cost of the red one, I went with the leather one. I could justify it because I plan on having this box for a long time to come. There is a very specific purpose for this box: to hold all the ephemera that constitutes the memories of my life. My memory has more holes than a fine Swiss cheese. Keepsakes of good times are stuffed into various boxes, envelopes, etc. to jog my memory, fill in those holes. But there is too much. Thus the red box, I'm limiting myself to what can fit inside this box. Plenty of things can be scanned and stored away electronically. But for those things that I want to hold onto the original, they'll go in the red box- and only the red box. Why pare down to just this one box? Simplicity, less clutter, focus on the essentials... and if I happen to move, it will make it a little bit easier.

Okay, just imagine the bottom box in a deep red.