Life outside of the box

I just finished watching a friend spend 5 minutes coaxing his dog into sitting in a box. It ended with him physically lifting her into the box, where she just sat still and looked at him quizzically. Why did he put her in that box? And then he asked her...don't you think this is fun? My only clue that she didn't was when he said you can get out of the box...she bolted away at doggy-warp speed.

When I moved out of my parent's house I packed away all of my high school belongings into a box. 2' x 3' of yearbooks, homecoming pictures, corsages, and different trinkets--the sign I made at one youth conference. The banner from my Sweet 16 Party. A bag full of pins from conferences and letters from boyfriends. Why was all of this stuff so important to me 10 years ago? Even more recently, when I bought my house I packed away my college mementos into a similar 2' x 3' box. Guess what? I have NO idea what is in that box. So basically, the evidence of my memories from the first 21 years of my life are tucked away into approximately 12 square feet of storage. That's a little depressing. Luckily, there are so many memories that live forever in my mind and heart that I can guarantee are not in those boxes.

Freshman year of college we bundled up and went to the lake at midnight. Laying on the ground and staring at the stars we talked about where we thought we would be after the next four years. Something that we didn't talk about...I have only spoken to one of those six people in the last 2 years. Junior year of high school I went to a youth leadership conference. In a caucus style forum, I was chosen to get up and present a speech on some random subject with only 15 minutes to prepare. As I got up in front of a group of 900 females, I froze. First (and only) time in my life that I've been speechless.

How about for my 15th birthday when we went jet skiing at the lake? The driver of my jet ski made it the day's mission to throw me off the back. And for the first 4 times that he succeeded, I made sure that he came with me. But that 5th time...he spun out into a 360 and about halfway through the spin, I go flying off, hitting the water so hard that the wind was knocked out of me and I may have lost consciousness for a moment. Put it this way, when he finished the spin, I was still in the air. So today, when earlier-mentioned dog-boxing friend finally persuaded me to go for a ride on his motorcycle, I freaked out about 30 seconds into the ride and was determined to walk the rest of the way home. I know my mantra is "I'll try anything twice," but it'll be a while yet before I attempt that again.