Bad Juju

I was getting it together finally. The holidays last year were the first good ones I can remember since leaving home all those years ago. There was no depression, moodiness, crying for anything/nothing, or feeling like an abandoned waif one second and a raging bull the next. I’d said my peace – a letter full of my very small voice choking out what needed to be said, probably falling on deaf ears. We were better.
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Then the box arrived.
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It felt a bit like our first road trip with the Rover, when I could see a rock coming at us like a javelin but couldn’t avoid it. It made such a big chip I jokingly called it the ‘North Star’. So too, when the most unlikely messenger came waltzing into the shop saying she had a box for me – I could see her coming, knowing it could only bode ill, but helpless to get out of the way. I accepted the box, shouldn’t have. She said it’d been mailed 2 years ago to my old address but I’d moved. She left, leaving me with a deep sense of foreboding.

I almost didn’t open it. I knew who it came from, there was no one else, and a wicked bitterness welled in my stomach knowing it was all my fault. I should’ve talked to Honey, should never have made that phone call, or agreed to meet. Should’ve known no good could possibly come from it. Should have left well enough alone. Now, the door I had been trying for so many years to keep chained and later to slam completely was open again.
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*sigh* Live and learn I guess.
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I opened it. Confusion was the name of the game for the rest of the day. There was no note, no explanation. My high school diploma, old prom pictures, a couple year books, some blurry photos from middle school of people I don’t remember…a stuffed reindeer I’ve had forever and haven’t seen in about as long, a framed photo of an old soccer team. And at the very bottom, two scrap book pages, I’m sure made by me, with old Polaroid’s of my parents wedding reception, the animals I loved now gone, me kissing a rabbit and looking lanky and slightly like a Wild Thing, holding a soccer trophy in the front yard.

I don’t know the purpose of a package like that. The few happy memories were ruined by the black noxious cloud that clings to everything surrounding the sender. The woman is evil, I know it, but in that subtle, passive-aggressive way that’s so hard to spot and harder to combat. You don’t realize until later that she’s insulted the hell out of you to your face.

I called home. Afterward I felt worse, the whole scope of how bad this could get sinking in like poison. The postmarks said March ’09, the delivery confirmation signature had been removed, and the forwarding sticker from the post office was on it. It was addressed to ‘Ms’ and in my maiden name. (Our 7th anniversary is next month). I have no idea how the messenger got it.

I took the diploma to file with my taxes and one prom picture, the only picture in the box including my husband. And I Fed-Ex’d it back. I included a short note asking that no more boxes be sent, that I wouldn’t accept anymore packages from her messenger; I had no use for the contents so she could do with them what she wanted, trash or keep, and I didn’t want anything from them.
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The things I once wanted are lost forever, spoiled with a legacy of bad juju.