The Memory Box

Photograph by Anamitra Ray

When we were little,

my sister and I 

had a small, cardboard box

filled with stickers. 

Treasure chest, we would call it.

Of glittering stars and tiny flowers,

cartoon faces grinning up at us.

Each, carefully chosen, collected over time.

But we never used them.

Not a single one.

Every day, we ran our fingers

over their smooth, glossy surfaces.

Held them up to the light,

admired them like rare jewels.

We promised to save them

for something special, something worthy.

Yet no moment ever felt quite right.

We imagined where they might go—

 the first page of a diary, a school project, a letter to my best-friend.

“This heart shaped one 

on Mom’s birthday card. No,on Dad's.” 

Doubt arrived like a shadow.

What if we changed our minds?

What if a better place for them appeared tomorrow?

What if we wasted them on something ordinary?

So, back to the box they went.

Years passed. We moved 

from one home to another. 

The box moved with us,

sitting on dusty shelves, tucked away

in drawers, buried at the bottom of storage bins—

waiting, just like us.

Occasionally, we’d rediscover it,

our excitement bubbling, only 

to be replaced by the same hesitation.

And then one day, it was gone.

Misplaced, thrown away,

swallowed by time.

Not a single sticker ever used.

I think about that box sometimes—

how we held on too tightly,

how we waited for perfect

and lost everything in the waiting.

Isn’t that how it goes? 

We save our dreams for later,

our love for the right moment,

our wild, burning joy

for a day that never arrives.

If I had that box again,

I would peel each sticker

one by one,

place them everywhere—

on notebooks, on walls, on postcards,

 on the palms of my hand.

Happiness is not in the waiting.

It is in the living.

Maybe that is the lesson after all—

life is not meant to be stored away

for an uncertain tomorrow.

It is meant to be used,

spent,

shared.