Container Arts was my favorite store when I was a kid. The sign was black and yellow and the name was spelled in a stencil font. They only sold plastic boxes in different sizes and colors. Though they may have carried more than clear colored plastic cuboids, those rectangular boxes were the crux of my world.
Beyond everything having a place, it was color-coded control. A way to have some kind of simple order; something I could understand that would be consistent and predictable.
I would buy those boxes and take them home, thinking of what I could put in them to make my room look like that store. Everything would have a place. Everything would be fine.
The boxes were always too big or too small, or they broke as I tried to fit something in them. Shards of hard clear color cut my little hands holding colored pencils I was too scared to use, lest I use one faster than the others and break up the set. The same went for markers, crayons, pens, paper, everything.
My idea of perfect was where everything was balanced and even and in little plastic boxes, out in the open so I knew where everything fit. In my idea of perfect, everything fit somewhere. Maybe there was a box big enough to hold me.
As I got older, the plastic boxes went away, but my need to fill them remained. I wanted things to be clear and labeled in boxes on my shelf. Friends, boyfriends, people to trust, people to avoid, things to do today, things to do tomorrow, things to never do again, goals, dreams, birthdays, failures, and so on, and so on, and so on.
In the unfortunate event of a misfiling, the whole system was second-guessed and everything needed to be purged or refiled. It was an awful task that was usually abandoned halfway through when an executive order came down to burn everything to the ground.
Twenty years later, an independent audit determined gross mis-micromanagement as the downfall as the system and the filing room is now off limits in a high security area. Though breaches have been known to occur, especially in the past year, the new team seems to have everything under control and can handle the large influx of questions and information constantly making its way into the facility.
I have this problem where I think everything has a place; consistent and predictable. Where my shelf is full of clear, color-coded control in a simple order I can understand. But like the pencils, if I try to cram people into boxes so I know where they are in case I ever decide to use them, I end up alone with broken boxes.
And even if I get everything into its right box, I end up alone with boxes I’m too scared to touch.
B
Beyond everything having a place, it was color-coded control. A way to have some kind of simple order; something I could understand that would be consistent and predictable.
I would buy those boxes and take them home, thinking of what I could put in them to make my room look like that store. Everything would have a place. Everything would be fine.
The boxes were always too big or too small, or they broke as I tried to fit something in them. Shards of hard clear color cut my little hands holding colored pencils I was too scared to use, lest I use one faster than the others and break up the set. The same went for markers, crayons, pens, paper, everything.
My idea of perfect was where everything was balanced and even and in little plastic boxes, out in the open so I knew where everything fit. In my idea of perfect, everything fit somewhere. Maybe there was a box big enough to hold me.
As I got older, the plastic boxes went away, but my need to fill them remained. I wanted things to be clear and labeled in boxes on my shelf. Friends, boyfriends, people to trust, people to avoid, things to do today, things to do tomorrow, things to never do again, goals, dreams, birthdays, failures, and so on, and so on, and so on.
In the unfortunate event of a misfiling, the whole system was second-guessed and everything needed to be purged or refiled. It was an awful task that was usually abandoned halfway through when an executive order came down to burn everything to the ground.
Twenty years later, an independent audit determined gross mis-micromanagement as the downfall as the system and the filing room is now off limits in a high security area. Though breaches have been known to occur, especially in the past year, the new team seems to have everything under control and can handle the large influx of questions and information constantly making its way into the facility.
I have this problem where I think everything has a place; consistent and predictable. Where my shelf is full of clear, color-coded control in a simple order I can understand. But like the pencils, if I try to cram people into boxes so I know where they are in case I ever decide to use them, I end up alone with broken boxes.
And even if I get everything into its right box, I end up alone with boxes I’m too scared to touch.
B
Posted by Peanut Butter And Jealous 
