Speaking of these boxes...

I literally have so much to do from 7:45 - 9:30 tomorrow that I can't even comprehend how I am going to accomplish it all. Like requesting a copy of my high school diploma from Pymatuning Valley for work. Which is kind of ridiculous because I was told my college transcripts would work also, but apparently I absolutely just have to get my diploma from PV. This is extra stupid because I should just have a copy of it but when I moved to Youngstown the day after graduation I boxed up all of my crap in some boxes to be left at home (until I could find a place big enough for the random crap I collect) this included my diploma. Which, as it turns out, are all in the top attic-y part of the garage at home that no one can reach anymore because we don't take care of things where I am from. Also, I am pretty sure based on the state of that garage that the contents of the boxes (stories, poems, art, diploma, books, collected crap, other crap with sentimental value) has some pretty intense water damage.

Besides my the general categorizing of what is in those boxes I really don't know what specifically is in them. Or still in them, even. The 4th week I visited Andover after moving I found my sister had acquired some items that looked pretty similar to some expensive items I had put in those boxes. That she subsequently either gave away or broke. But she steals things, that is kind of her thing, I knew this as I packed those boxes. So I buried the expensive crap pretty deep under all the "pointless" crap. Which...makes me wonder what else she ended up taking that I don't know about.

I feel like if I opened up those boxes now or even years from now that it would be like going on some time machine. I might even cry. As I recall the collected "Sticky Files"* and the comics I wrote with my friends are all in there. If they end up staying up there after my family vacates I can only imagine how strange the new residents will find all of it. I am a pretty weird individual now, but in high school I was a lot more weird. Mostly because I was awkward and strange and didn't know how to express it verbally so I just cut myself and wrote bad poetry about hanging out in cemeteries. So basically like every other "gothy" teenager except I collected a lot of found objects, other people's photographs, bottles that I thought looked cool, and anything that reminded me of a cat. The cat stuff is definitely a lot less weird than the rest of it. All that crap is in those boxes though. It'll be like opening up some tomb or something. The tomb of the life I used to live and the person I used to be. So yeah, I'll probably cry. Because I will probably both hate myself for being as sad as I was and miss the kind of hopefulness for the future I used to feel.

But never in my life had I ever expected that the path I was on way back in high school was the same path that would bring me where I am. Heck, I didn't even think I would live this long. I just figured my life would just end at some point between 16 - 20 and that would be it. The book would close. This has nothing to do with the theme "holy fuck I am an adult," instead it is something more like "holy fuck I can't believe I've been so many different people."

*The Sticky Files were collected stories, quotes, notes, and inside jokes between my friend Nicole "Sticky" and myself. We filled up numerous notebooks with the stuff from 8th grade to senior year.  Yeah, that was my life. Stories of me and my friend being strange and giggling at everything.