A few hours before now I was looking through the garage for a red box. My mom told me it was in there and that it was filled with fabric that I could make a skirt with. I never found the red box because 5 seconds after my search began me saw baby Meagan, the doll I'd received one Christmas when I was about 2 years old. If there were a hierarchy of dolls in my room baby Meagan would have been the king.
I immediately picked her up, stripped off her dirty dress and threw she and the dress into the washing machine. I felt like the kid from "The brave little toaster" when he discovers BRL as an adult, except baby Meagan is much better than an old appliance.

I went back to investigate the box of stuff that she'd been laying in and found several interesting items, some of them ravaged by rats.
There where my blue leather shoes from the Renaissance festival 6 years ago, several books, most of them humorous, art supplies, a framed "on this day in history" from April 9th, 1984,a small stack of birthday cards and a large manila envelope that appeared to be filled with a past relationship. I started taking stock of the contents when I noticed fragments of dried flower petals all over the floor; the rats had made a hole in the corner of the envelope and my elderly prom corsage had seen better days.

There were a lot of letters, some pictures of him or the both of us, a homemade ticket for one free road trip, prom invitations and drawings, and tapes. It was a long distance relationship and having been a seasoned veteran of long distance relationships of varying types I had come up with the idea of making vocal letters. Probably from watching several episodes of "Felicity".

I have several thoughts while looking through the envelope:
"man, we made more tapes than I remember" "I’ll probably never listen to them again, it would probably be uncomfortable to hear thoughts of love from him now and anything else would be old news" "hmm, I wonder if I could still cash in this road trip ticket..." and "I guess I could put it all in a box and save it for my declining years".
The last thought is one I've had a few times. As I said, I’ve known a few long distance relationships; friendships included and have stocked up many, many letters. All of them are unique and hold specific memories, some of which I don't want to revisit by reading them again. I've grown past a few of the sentiments, and the relationships I have with these people now has evolved from what it was in high school. But I don't want to throw the letters away, so what do I do?

Well, if you’re in the same boat then listen up because I’ve got a solution! If you’re familiar with the time capsule idea then this idea will seem...more familiar. So what you do is, you get a big plastic container, put everything you want to keep but don't have room for and bury it in the back yard. Or a park or a big field as long as your sure there won't be something built on top of it in the next 20 years. Then write yourself a note and put it somewhere so you won't forget, and that’s important.
Now just wait till you feel the urge to relive your days of youth with better accuracy than your mind can produce on its own.