The Golden Box

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Anaïs Nin

I’ve got this golden box. It glitters and shines, and when the sun hits its surface, it radiates and lights up a whole room. I was supposed to fill it with dreams. You know, cut out fragments of other people’s lives, put together images from magazines, or just collect dreamy quotes and let them incubate in there for as long as needed in order to manifest fully in due time.

Now I don’t know. I’ve been to the underworld and back. It’s like I’ve emptied part of my soul down there. And now I don’t know what to fill it with. It really isn’t a bad feeling in the sense that we usually label things that are heavy on our hearts as bad. It is hard to explain. I could say it is a neutral feeling. But somehow, it is more than that. It is a stillness that has seeped in through the open doors to my heart and into the empty space of the golden box. And it is just that—an empty space. Infinite potential. Something waiting to be filled. But it is not quite ready yet.

I wrote a short text that is on the brink of this stillnes. Still stained with pain but right there on the edge. “The Space in Between” I call it.

"In the space in between, things are painfully unclear. A liminal space where the moon shines its light only on the shallow parts of your floating awareness, holding the deeper parts out of your vision.

In the space in between, the gravel is still covering the sidewalk. There is not a hint of snow to be seen, yet the flowers are still hiding under the soil. This is the wait. The holding of breath. The pause before the climax. It gently wraps its cover over your body, asking you to stay. To wait. To embrace. Yet there is nothing as hard as the space in between.

In the space in between, the tears are running out. Yet the smile has not found its way to your lips. The painful grasping of grief is slowly letting go, only to leave an empty space— not yet ready to be filled with love. The emptiness. The loneliness. The confusion. The gratitude. The love. The warm breath of a sleeping child. All sharing space. 

The space in between."

As I look at the golden box, I realize how much I have wanted to be somewhere else. How I have not been able to accept the events that have taken place over the years. How death shapes everything that comes after it in ways completely unimaginable at the time of its passing through. Just a few years ago, I would have filled the box with everything I thought I did not have. Everything that was not recognizable to my earthly senses. Love, joy, riches. Friends, family, and fun. Just because I believed I did not have it. But somehow, I never got around to it. Because I knew, however much I resisted it, that I was stuck in the underworld. In the space in between. Where the years had passed, but my heart had not recovered. So I left the box empty.

And now I find myself in a new place in time and space. I don’t know if it is possible for a heart to fully recover. But it sure does its best. And somehow, it feels like it has put itself back into something that can feel again. And in that feeling, the emptiness of the box is not a symbol of what I have believed my life lacks. It holds true, infinite potential. It holds love, joy, friends, and family. And it holds memories. Beautiful memories. Memories that, like a golden thread through time, stretch into dreams about the future, beautifully weaving them together. I do not know where life will take me or what will eventually unfold. But I am rising from the underworld, and in that rising, I am also leaving the space in between.

The painful grasping of grief has let go. And the heart is already filling up with love.