in and out of boxes, continuously

Two hours ago everything was fine. I was happy.

But something has been bothering me.

Where is that photo?

That one photo.

All photos being packed carefully away in various places.

With the absolute favorites all piled loosely together in one particular box.

As it's always been.

But established patterns got thrown off.

I became overwhelmed with all that I inherited from my dad.

Namely his photos. His millions of books and pieces of paper and mechanical drawing tools.

His bottles of windex.

His bottles of wine.

His jars filled with nuts and bolts (and sometimes just jars filled with smaller jars).

His furniture.

His millions of business cards.

His plaster-of-paris death mask of his own face.

His method of perspective.

His endless recipes and personal notes on everything.

His literal shoes.

His figurative sweater.

(and on and on)

Just boxes upon boxes of another person's life.

Cherished. And too much.

So I decided to move.

I just wanted to halt what was happening.

With all of these boxes.

I needed more space, yes, but, really, at that point (with all the dad-related boxes that had accumulated around me) I just wanted everything to be in boxes.

To make all things equal.

So I packed up everything and moved to another apartment (down the street).

This was so each kind of box could be unpacked with the same measure of (practicality, love, detachment) attention.

It was around this point that I met my boyfriend, Tom.

And I began ignoring the few left over dad-related boxes (as well, moving-related boxes).

Really, any boxes.

I was "living my life"

And I was in love.

And it went like that for a few months.

Then one night Tom was robbed and nearly killed in our neighborhood.

And we had always been so mindful about local criminal activity.

Really. Truly.

We had discussed the situation so many times.

Almost too many times.

But it was in the air.

So when he got attacked, lots of "things" were lost, shuffled around and ignored. But none of that mattered.

He made it out alive.

Which is incredible.

So, somewhere along the way, I lost a photo.

So what.

It's a picture of my mom and dad walking down a familiar street taken by me when I was little.

Just of them from their knees down.

I'm not sure why it's so important to me.

It's somewhere.

One day it will fall out of a book.

Or be found in that one last box I have yet to unpack.

Yes.