My Box

One of the threads on the Bandlandia Message Boards is about "The Box." It's that place that is unique to each of us - where we retreat to - a place we are safe.

I've been thinking about what my box is like - so here goes...

My box is big – and knows it’s big and doesn’t usually let its size get in the way.

On the outside, my Box is Lucite – slightly opaque – where if you look real hard, you can see glimmers of what is inside.

It has beautiful colors – slightly iridescent so it’s able to blend in with many different décors and settings. It’s lively, quirky, and free-spirited. It’s something that goes well with either being out on display at the center of attention or up against the wall, blending into the surroundings.

The Box used to be the color of the wall paper so it could just hide – but I had some wonderful friends who came into my life to redecorate – for its what they do best – and they were able to show me how much better the Lucite would be if I took off the wallpaper wrapper and let my Box join the rest of the gang – size didn’t matter. They helped me realize that we all have boxes that are a little queer – so we should celebrate that and just BE. So I stripped away that wallpaper and that beautiful Box emerged on September 10, 1995. I remember seeing that Box in a mirror on that day and thinking “Whoa! What Box is that?? Before realizing it was MY Box…

Inside, however, can be a much different story.

The inside of the Box is much like a snowy globe – beautiful scenery at its core, with fairly calm waters cushioning that core – but easily shaken.

Prone to Panic Attacks, I feel like as the Box is shaken, all of those snowflakes are attached to my nerve endings – and they go haywire when shaken. I know the calm will come and I’ll settle down again – but I never know how long it will take to get all of those flakes to settle down and be still again.

However, those snowy globes get sludgy, too. The grime of everyday life in the globe somehow forms and what I call the “Ick Factor” forms and weighs down the flakes, clumping them together – making me want to shove them to the back of the shelf and let others come to the foreground to be seen. (I have almost 60 of these things on my desk – long story for another time…)

My Box has sludge in it, too. It weighs me down and keeps my butt planted instead of out there exercising. It keeps me from going out there and putting that beautiful box on display a lot of the time.

The sludge is leftover from the wallpaper days, I think. It’s what comes along and de-sensitizes those nerve endings and weighs me down into feelings of inadequacy – feelings of ugliness. It’s the things that make me realize that while the beauty is there at the heart of me (the scenery of the snowy globe) – the sludge of my weight, my hair, and my physical problems – cause other people to recoil at times.

I’m now draining the globe – removing the sludge and the flakiness – and leaving behind – in its proper place – a shinier, more stable scene to enjoy. I'm replacing the flakes with glitter - helping add to the shine. I'm replacing the water with a solution that will help with the stability of the contents so that when the box is shaken, the nerves aren't so frantic, but are able to settle at a less frenetic pace.

I know it takes a while to get these things dried out – it’s been wet in there for a very long time.

But now I’ve got a blow dryer – its low wattage, so I know it won’t be done overnight – but I’m on my way…