A Life from Tucked Between Pages

Heartwarming artifacts unearthed in isolation

A thorough cleaning prompted by the first days of spring, coupled with the pandemic affording a lot of time to do so, was my impetus to, finally, tidy my childhood bedroom.

Of the things in boxes I’ve collected and dumped at my childhood home, books are the vast majority. Between textbooks, sketchbooks, journals, and more, there is an entire life of pivotal, noteworthy, and cringeworthy content––so telling and charming to merit an article.

The scores of valuable information is not only thrilling to brush up on in the present, but reminds me of significant developments that shaped my adolescence in the past. The notes are not just tidbits of knowledge. These pages mark the knowledge base that would ultimately shape my entire life.

What’s in these books and pages are not just scribbles, but the development of who would become me.

Like many as an adolescent and adult, I journaled on and off in different periods of my life. In mid–2013, I decided that it was time to lose my virginity to my boyfriend. It was respectful and honest, exactly what one would hope it would be.

What catches my eye here is not the event, but how blasée I was about it just days later. Isn’t it funny how, in life, the moments that we think will be the most profound and significant, never are? And the moments that don’t seem to matter much, stay with us forever?

This gets me thinking about the milestones still to come––the first day at a new job, the day I buy a house, the day I get married––the ones that are supposed to be the most memorable.

What would we gain, to lose the expectation of special days?

It would be no stretch to consider that which I’ve gained from this trip down memory lane a gift. The minimal effort I put forth to clean through the crap was given back in a flash. One example that comes to mind is Mother’s Day 2020, which did not look or feel like others.

First off, I was isolating from the coronavirus at my parents’ house. We hadn’t spent this much time in each other’s company, well, ever, but especially since I emerged into adulthood. While Mother’s day is usually a treat, as mama’s got her babies home again, it was old hat, we were already there.

It’s also a sad day filled with some degree of loss. My mama has been without her mother for nearly four years now, and not one of these have passed without her tears, since. My living Nana is in the early stages of dementia. We’re grateful for every moment we get to spend with her, but she comes in and out. It can be really hard to see because we love her so much.

When the day came around this year, we were all melancholy about it, my mama included. So I retreated, tearfully, to my bedroom and dove deep into my boxes. What caught my eye was an InStyle magazine from January 2016. It might be funny to flip through a magazine that was nearly 5 years old. What in the world was in style then?

The universe was smiling. I flipped the page straight into a handwritten letter by my Nana, and a twenty dollar bill. In the letter she recounts her bridge game, her impressive one hundred swimming laps in her community pool, and how she had beaten my Papa in a round of tennis — my what a life!

I flew downstairs to show my parents, and a smile beamed onto their faces when I did. We hugged and teared up. We passed the letter around and laughed at the anecdotes, adding some of our own. We poured a glass and toasted to Nana, and to the matriarchs of the family. Somehow, I know we were all smiling together.

The gospel of Bob Dylan always seems to come back around just before some of the most pivotal moments of my life; good, bad, or indifferent. While going through old notebooks in isolation, I spotted this quote from Bob Dylan’s 1964 song My Back Pages sketched onto a page in my notebook from 2017, when I was twenty-one and had just finished my last year of art school:

A page flip from this quote leads to a journal entry wherein I first expressed my will to break up with my college boyfriend, a man who I had grown up with over our three year relationship.

I had very many good reasons to break it off––the timing wasn’t right. I needed to grow into myself before I grew into us––but ours was a good relationship, and he was always kind to me.

In present day, once again preceded by Mr. Dylan, but Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright this time around, I read this entry a woman freshly grieving from a very different breakup. This partner, this time, took me for granted, treated me poorly, and was mean. I had sworn on this page years ago never to stand for that by virtue of knowing it should be better. How could I forget?

I’m grateful for the written record from my past to wake me out of grief in the present. To wake me to know that it was not like my first, won’t not be my last, was far from the best, and won’t even be the worst––it’s just not that deep. If I’m young and foolish now for forgetting, per Dylan, I was older and wiser when I wrote that entry. I’m so much younger now than I was, then.

Now begins the work to forgive myself for wanting things to be different. Now begins the work to learn from this now, and again. These are the lessons back pages can teach us in the present.

I’ve learned quite a lot about love, loss, and death over the course of my life––that does not come as a surprise. What does is the amount I can learn in the present from personal artifacts about knowledge forgotten, but once held.

When I moved back into my parents’ house after my ex–boyfriend abruptly kicked me out of his apartment a month ago, the work to re–find myself in healing began. Starting was the hardest part, and it was tremendous. But one box at a time, anecdotes of the full, rich life I’ve lived came back full force.

Many in my generation (Gen-Z, Millennial, what have you) also find themselves back from whence they came at their parents’ house riding out the storm of this pandemic. Join me in turning back the pages of life. Seek to learn from them what was once known.

There isn’t a science to why we collect what we do, but I believe the universe has given, and we’ve chosen to keep that which remains, for a reason. I’ve chosen to keep books, and between their bound sheets in hard and soft-cover is the strength in knowledge I need to flip onto the next chapter––

Or bookmark it for later.

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