About three months ago, my husband came home with a pink box I left behind at his parents house when we were living there. I completely forgot about it so I was surprised when I saw it. Inside were dozens of letters of friends and family back when I was in my teens. I started reading them one by one and half way through the letters, I realized I did have people that cared about me. Such a cheesy thing to say. Around that time, my mind was in a dark place. I felt I was nothing. I wasn’t a bad kid; I was just troubled on what I was suppose to be doing. I felt lost. I was too inside my head.

Besides letters, there were a bunch of movie tickets and pictures. If it wasn’t for the names behind the pictures, I wouldn’t know who it was. I also had bus tickets saved and I would write a small message on why it was so important. I also found some of my old drawings.

A part of me wanted to keep the letters because honestly, who really writes a letter these days but some of the people mentioned in these letters, I had no idea who we were talking about. That in itself lost my interest in keeping them. There was no personal feeling there. I simply forgot these people. That’s a horrible thing to say but it’s the truth. I’ll be holding on to a past piece that I basically don’t have any sort of memory. Some of the letters did make sense and I do remember certain events but I didn’t keep these letters either because the writer themselves isn’t that same person anymore. I lost touch of these friends and some were nasty fallouts that holding on to these past selves only brings a sense of melancholy. It just goes to show that people change.

After I finished reading every single letter, I kept only 4 and the rest were put in a trash bag. What a weird but cleansing feeling I got after. No regrets.

Ps. I kept this.