a box of secrets

It started with the magnetic mini-notice board mom bought me from ikea. It's finally up above my table, mr.Lo (the handyman) came over and drilled all the necessary holes and whatnot to put it up. I had stuck a list of maths formulae and a couple of pictures on it, but besides that, it was pretty bare. so last night i spent some time rummaging around the room for things to decorate my board with.

That was when i suddenly remembered the box that i keep in my bedside table cupboard. It's been ages since i looked through it. So i went and took it out, set it on my bed, and started going through the contents. The box is an old shoebox from when my mom bought her sneakers(circa 1997 or 1998, i think). I swiped the box from my mom mase tu and started storing everything i considered 'important' in it. I still do.

Practically every birthday card i've received is in there. Letters sent to me from friends. Letters i wrote but never sent. Every diary i've had since stadard 3. Pictures that mean something to me. Emails from special friends i had printed out, because i loved them so much and so i printed and brought them to asrama to me, since we didn't have much chance of going online there. My form 4 results slip. A few messages i got from those request thingies we had at school. My sekolah rendah nametags. My tunas puteri badge. My gigi susu(yeah, i kept 3 of them in a jewellery case. weird,yes). The speech i had to give out during sekolah rendah as KP sempena the retirement our my Guru Besar. My standard 6 choral speaking poem.

To say that this box is valuable to me would be an understatement.

So i spent my time going through eveything again, one by one. Ahah, it was bloody fun and sad at the same time. Seeing these things make you recollect and reminisce and think about what has happened since the moment you put it in the box. I found a card someone had sent me via post for my birthday, and i practically gasped, because i had completely forgotten about it. and yet there it was. That card brought back memories of me being happy as a clam when i received it, happy because that particular person had sent it.

I reread my old diaries, and some parts made me laugh out loud in disbelief at my childishness and immaturity. I was melodaramatic even when i was 9. I used code names for my crushes, and now i can't even remember who they really were. In my standard 5 diary, i wrote about my classmates and gossiped about who liked who and penned(or tried to) poems and mispelled dozens of words,plus, my writing was still atrocious. I reread in my first diary the fact that my very first email was created on january 6th,1999, and my password was 'diary', while the answer for the question in case i forgot my password was 'pistachio almond'.

And then there were the things that made me sad. My exam results during form 4 that showed that i still wasn't getting a grip on add maths or physics. The birthday card from someone who signed it as 'your best friend', and then a year later wasn't. The letters i wrote to my imaginary friend during form 2(i couldn't have had imaginary conversations, that would have just freaked everyone out, so i wrote letters) that talked about me feeling depressed and sad, and just wanting to bail out.

I reread all my diaries, and i've come to a conclusion. Our insecurities stay the same. Over the years we might change and mature or develope a different personality from when we were younger, but i think the things that make us insecure, the core of our sadness, remains the same. All of my past diaries, and even the journal i own now, have the same underlying theme when it comes to the sad parts.

When you read the wrtings of your younger self, you can't help but feel affection for the person she was and exasperation at the mistakes she's done, and you feel heart-breakingly sad for the problems she's going through and the insecurities she has. sometimes you want to reach out in time and knock some sense into her head and stop her from doing something stupid, and sometimes you just want to hug her and wipe her tears and tell her it's going to be ok, because you know that no one else will.

This box holds proof that i was happy or sad at some point in my life. If there's a fire (God forbid), i'm going to save it first,heh.

On a different note, i'm reading kazuo ishiguro's 'never let me go'. brilliant! reminds me of 'the giver'. as for music, for anyone who trusts my taste, i highly recommend 'illegal tender' by the band Louis XIV, and also 'look after you' by the fray.

Happy March!if i recall correctly, this is the month of a lot of birthdays.