
I’ve always loved pretty boxes—wooden, glass, fabric-covered, floral-printed—containers that don’t look like they’d be doing something as utilitarian as hiding letters, stickie notes that have lost their stick ’em, story research, and all of my “to be dealt with later.” If the box in question has a hinged lid with an attached satin ribbon for lifting, all the better.
I put just about every box I own to work yesterday.
In the final days of finishing my book manuscript, the Story Shack became virtually uninhabitable (this always happens). There was stuff everywhere and almost nowhere to step, let alone work. So yesterday, I did the post-completion purge—threw out, stacked up, filed, vacuumed, Swiffered, cleaned the windows, and pseudo-dusted. And I boxed—computer cords in a red glass cube, unstickable stickies that I still need in a pretty stationery box, Southern Living work in a fabric storage bin.
All the previous chaos is still there but now it’s manageable. I know where it is when I’m ready for it, but I’m not letting it invade my mental or physical space till the time comes.
The result? I couldn’t wait to get out here this morning, and I can’t wait to start something new.
We all need mental boxes right now. Lots and lots of them. Because there’s just too much happening at once to cope with it all at the same time. If you try to take it on all at once, it’ll overwhelm you—just like my glueless stickie notes, scattered around my desk and distracting me from the screen where I needed to focus, the place where I could actually exert some control and make good things happen.
The real beauty of boxes is that they’re empowering. They say to your daily challenges, “Get in there and don’t come out till I say so.”
My biggest daily challenge right now is my physical health. Between all the sheltering-in-place comfort eating I did and an I-have-no-time-to-exercise attitude for the past six months, my preexisting waistline issues have become serious (make that horrifying, as in, I think I heard the mirror scream). But given my current fitness level (nil) and some post-COVID shortness of breath when I exert, I’ve had to accept that I can’t walk two miles like I once did. That goal went into a box. Right now, my goal is to just move. Short walks. Ten minutes of step aerobics. Whatever I can do right now, not what I hope to do a month from now, because if I focus on the unattainable, then I’ll just end up feeling hopeless and not do anything.
The point of my ode to boxes? Do what you can when you can, and put the rest in a really pretty box till you’re strong enough to take it on. And to quote my dear friend Jane, whom I miss every day, "Sometimes you gotta let the rough end drag."
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34
Finally, all of you be of one mind,
having compassion for one another;
love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;
not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling,
but on the contrary blessing,
knowing that you were called to this,
that you may inherit a blessing.
1 Peter 3: 8-9
[Image by Pexels @ Freerangestock.com]