If you have ever been a parent or talked to a parent, you have undoubtedly told or heard stories about the fascination children have with boxes that gifts come in that is above and beyond their fascination with the gift itself.
My children had such a box. I don’t even remember what came inside the box anymore. During the course of its useful life, that box was a TV set, a race car, a jail cell, a teacher’s desk, and a fort. It is unbelievable to adults—at least to me—what a little imagination added to simple objects can do. Smaller boxes are stacked on top of bigger boxes to make buildings or whole towns. Or they can be nested together in graduated sizes. The fascination with outer wrappings goes on and on.
And it carries over into adulthood. Not that adults go around pretending to be driving a Jaguar convertible when they are really sitting inside a cardboard box...but wouldn’t that be funny? It is the outer wrappings of our bodies that we are obsessed with as adults. We become so caught up in making a pretty package that it’s hard for anyone else to recognize, much less appreciate, the beautiful gifts inside each of us.
Just as my children have decorated their boxes, I too do artwork on my outer wrapping. It can take up a significant portion of my morning routine. Wipe one product on, wipe it off with another product. Smear one cream on and then wet it and wipe it off with another cream. Then comes the fun part…the color. Tan face, blue eyelids, pink cheeks, and red mouth. The rest of my day is comprised of making sure the pretty package is still nicely wrapped without wrinkles or rips. This is usually an exercise in futility.
They say looks fade. That is, if you had “looks” in the first place. I interpret this to mean you go from stunningly gorgeous to moderately attractive. This applies to, oh I don’t know, maybe 1% of the population, right? The rest of us average schmucks start out behind the 8-ball, and then this interpretation becomes going from moderately attractive (if you’re lucky) to something that survived a mudslide of biblical proportions.
I have discovered at this very late point in my life that I have ZERO fashion or style sense. For years--decades, really--I have either worn my hair very short and straight or long and permed. Never, since I was maybe 5 years old, have I worn it long and straight. Turns out this is my best look, at least according to comments I have gotten since I started letting it grow. Whoda thunk it? And when I head out the door thinking to myself my hair is as good as it is going to get today and people will just have to like it or lump it, that’s when I get the “Gosh, your hair looks great today.” Conversely, when I get done messing with my hair and the curling iron and hair spray and am feeling really good about the results, I get a comment such as “Lord, what happened to your hair?!”
It’s too bad that the simple joy and imagination of children playing with boxes isn’t carried into adulthood as well. Then the pretty package we spend so much time creating and maintaining wouldn’t be needed. Each gift contained within ourselves could be plainly seen with the eyes of genuine liking and respect.
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