We had a student aide who, like so many of the students in a community college, was a “mature learner.” She had done some hard living in her time — including a period of her life when she’d had to move from apartment to apartment in search of the cheapest rent. It seemed like they were always packing and unpacking. It got so that they just didn’t unpack anything they didn’t immediately need. One day, when her life had settled down and she was in a house where she stayed for a while, she decided to go through the oldest boxes, and she found one box which had been moved, unopened, from one home to another from the very start.

She opened it, and what was in it?

Trash.

Not junk. Not stuff she wished she had thrown away a long time ago. It was actual trash which she HAD thrown away a long time ago. Food wrappers and packing material and tissues. She’d put it in a garbage bag and set it aside to throw out as she left that first house… and some helpful soul had kindly packed it in a box for her and stuck it on the truck.

And for a decade she toted that box of trash with her from house to house.

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The lesson of the second story is not about external things, but internal ones: Habit and Pride are a pair of helpful friends who will pack up your trash and make you take it with you. You can’t really see it, though, until you open the box. And you only open the box when you catch a break and want to clear things out.

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I found that story on my travels across the internet here:

http://daringnovelist.blogspot.com/2011/07/baked-ham-joke-and-problem-with-legacy.html

That story spoke to me a lot. Lately I have been feeling very angry and unhappy like I’m carrying a lot of trash around with me. I think it’s time to unpack some boxes.