A friend of mine I’ve known most of my life once told me I tend to live my life in boxes.
She didn’t mean it in an accusatory way—there was no chastisement attached; she was just making an observation. And when I thought about it, I realized she was right: Whatever constitutes my life at any given time, I live in that box and nowhere else. Everything is in there, self contained: job, friends, mindset—all related—and all with sole influence over whoever I am at the time and whatever life lesson I’m learning. I throw myself into that box wholeheartedly, and I don’t look beyond what I’m doing right then.
And when that phase of my life ends, as it always does, I pack up the box, close up the flaps, tape it shut, and shove it away into my memory, which of course bears a remarkable resemblance to the government warehouse in the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don’t look back (as far as anybody knows), I don’t get nostalgic; I remember the time fondly (or not so fondly) and move on to my next box, which I throw myself into wholeheartedly once again, with equal intensity to the previous box, soon to be matched in intensity for the following box.
Okay, enough about boxes. You get the idea.
I’ve never had a problem with living my life that way; I’ve always felt that when I’m done with a phase of my life, it’s okay to let it go. I learned whatever I was supposed to learn, or I did whatever job I was supposed to complete, or I helped someone I was supposed to help—I completed whatever task was required of me and I was free to go. You know—kind of like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. “I’m done; can I leap out now?” Mmm…Scott Bakula…
Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah.
Dragon Droppings 