A Box Marked Confidential

I found the box of letters and old pictures in my grandmother's attic. Their discovery could only mean, a melding part of the long journey back to my old self and the unknown road ahead to the new self I am uncovering daily. I found them in the last place I told myself they could possibly be.

Finding them wasn't easy, I had to pry nails out of the attic trap door and unusual duct tape just to lower the stairs. Plus I had to do this with the precision of a safe cracker in MI:2 - if my grandmother knew I was breaking into her attic vault she would freak.

I climbed the stairs and when I reached the top, the box marked "Sabrina Confidential" was sitting at the top waiting for me (screaming READ ME! for anyone else to discover). I reached into the box and pulled out the first piece of paper that my hand touched. It was a letter. From him.

I sat down on the attic floor, my legs dangling into the ceiling of the hall below. I pulled the string and switched on the bare light bulb above. With my head in the rafters, I read one of the last letters he wrote me wishing me well. Confirming our break-up. It was like he were speaking the words to me that very day. I could hear his voice, his earnestness. I could see his eyes.

From below, my sister asked "Did you find it?". My daughter asking "Mommy, Can I see?" I put the letter back and didn't even pause to inspect the rest of the contents of the cardboard enclosure. I would save opening the rest for some quiet time. I had waited this long. I could wait a few more hours until I could find some alone time.

Driving back to Nashville, the box brought to mind the play "Love Letters" by A.R. Gurney that traces the lifelong correspondence and untapped relationship between two friends/wannabe lovers(?) and the unfolding of their lives via the written word. I remember that I wept when I saw the play at TPAC with Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner.

Always a hopeless romantic before, but with my heart hardened due to sadness, mistrust and death of a few of the dreams I had for my life I wondered - would I weep when I read the letters in this box marked confidential? How would reading them make me feel? Our correspondence stopped when we both got married. I wanted to respect the boundaries of our marriages especially knowing that the feelings I still have are far greater than friendship.

For we were lovers in the greatest sense and we held each other's dreams in our hands and kept those dreams safe for each other. We believed in each other and always wanted the best for each other. And when we broke apart - it was peaceful with nothing else to say - no ill will - and the love I had for him the day we broke up still lives in my heart, in my mind and my memory and it is the gift that I carry with me. That I was loved by this wonderful person and how lucky I was to have had that kind of love.

Arriving home I left the box in the back of my car. As if it were a fragile artifact, I didn't want to move it again until I could pull all the contents out inspect each treasure in the right setting and with me in the right state of mind. I also realized that in these high-tech days of text messaging, e-mail and digital photography, that this box contained a preserved history - these letters, matchbooks, ticket stubs were little gifts waiting to be opened again.

As it turned out the opportunity to read the letters and look at the photos again presented itself that very evening. My daughter was going to hang out with her Aunt Dawn, I was alone for the night.

I took the time to slowly read each letter. I took note of when his stationary changed and remembered even the smell of the pages. How comforting it was to see the grid of the familiar graph paper, remembering his thought process and the emphasis of the things I remembered to be important to him. I read of trips we were planning to take together, the blossoming of our romance and relationship, rehashed phone discussions, chronology of the week's classes and study schedule, flight plans, career plans, true communication of our feelings, declarations, notes asking how my family and friends were doing. It was interesting to read the parts of the letter that pointed to the strife in our relationship. When he was into the relationship I wasn't and vice versa. Petty jealousies and immaturities aside we did a lot of growing up together.

The box held a cassette tape that contained songs we would record back and forth for each other. Don Williams, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Rogers - the dated music told the story of our feelings for each other also. Hidden messages when we were over the moon in love, mad, playful etc.... I gasped when I heard the first song on the tape, because after we listened to it for the first time he told me that he loved me. We were sitting in his car and as he hugged me, I felt him slip off his class ring from his finger while his arms were around me.

The insides of the box held some of the greatest treasures my life has known; poignant and funny greeting cards, matchbooks from restaurants, ticket stubs from movies and plays, postcards from far off places, photos of us from various stages of the years we shared with one another. But the tangible items also contained love, the promise of the future, happiness, photographic memories of hiking and camping in the mountains, road trips, the beach, sitting on a swing quietly smiling because you are next to the one you love, an extraordinary dog named Charley.

I saved the photos for last because I thought that when I looked at them it would make me sad for the love I had lost. Instead, I saw something in the photos that surprised me. I saw Sabrina, happy, having fun, eyes luminous - the girl I had forgotten - the girl who had so much self-confidence that it was intimidating to some - the girl who was loved by an exceptional guy. I wept when I saw the photos - not out of sadness but out of shock and recognition - there was the guy I loved with the girl I had loved. In addition to my feelings of missing him, I realized how much I had missed her, because I never realized I had how much of myself I have lost along the way.

It was a quiet evening that I will always cherish. I felt like I had spent the evening catching up with a very dear friend. Reading his letters again made me realize why I think of him so much when I listen to the rain hitting the windows, smell the honeysuckle while driving down a backroad and pause when I see the dogwoods bloom for the first time in the spring and why when I go to the Smokies to hike or camp I feel like I am coming home. Why when I hear John Waite singing the verse "Everytime I think of you, I always catch my breath" that it ushers back some wonderful feelings I haven't felt in a long time.

So what do I do with all this? I feel fortunate to even have these old fashioned love letters tied carefully with a ribbon, hiding in a box marked confidential, locked in a closet waiting for me to shed some light on them again (maybe when I'm feeling a little bit nostalgic for that exceptional person and that extraordinary dog). With the internet, IMing and text messaging do people even send love letters anymore? I feel providential that I had this my "first love, true love" experience with him.

I can only hope that someday when my daughter experiences this that it is with someone just as wonderful. And hopefully, I will have the grace to reach back to the girl I once was and recapture that confidence and belief in myself and never lose sight of her again. I've lost touch with him over the years, but "I hear his name in certain circles, And it always makes me smile."