The way things were.

I'm only 27 years old. So I know that I haven't yet lived decades of meanigful experiences. But once you are past 25, I think you can start remembering things that happened ten years ago.

Ten years ago I was getting a drivers permit. (Okay so it was 12 years now)

Eleven years ago I turned 16.

Ten years ago I graduated from high school.

Yes, everyone who is over 35 is laughing at me.

But I like looking back over the people I've known and loved over the last ten years.

People and friends and places that become frozen in time. I feel like they sit in the closet of my memory. When I was a kid I always loved the shoe boxes in my mom's closet. That's how my memories sit until I take them off the shelf.

In little boxes. Labeled. Time. Date. Name. And maybe a polaroid taped to the front. My best friend growing up wiht a Barbie doll. My high school boyfriend with a dozen rozens. My college roommate with a pink sweater tied around her shoulders. My little sister the day she was born. My burnt shoulders under tank straps at my brothers baseball game. Cotton candy stuck to my finger tips at the County Fair.

I opened a few boxes this weekend. Literal boxes that metaphorically hold a lot more than their contents. This weekend, while on a mini-vaca with my family. My mom brought me three boxes.

Cardboard. Duct taped.

They had journals. Cards. Wedding invitations. Photos. Of people I once knew. Places I once went. Thoughts I onced had. It's an extremeley odd experience to recognize yourself through a looking glass of sorts.

I love to look at those pictures. I like to remember all that God has taken me through.

I like the boxes.

I like the faces in the polaroids.

I like where I came from.