Pretend you could take everything you don’t like about yourself, every experience that pains you and peel it away like dried paint. Now place it in a box, an old shoe box or any box you can find. Seal the box, with duct tape, super glue anything to keep it shut, anything that will lock it away. Wander into the woods, a field, a place no one goes and dig; dig till you disturb the worms and the bugs, dig till you see the water break through the mud. Now throw the box in, cover it up and walk away. Don't look back.

A few years later you return, you’re older, wiser and yet you still have come back here. You promise yourself you wont come back here. Yet you dig, dig back into the earth you cast yourself away in so long ago. The box is there, it’s worn and wet, almost not a box but something living. Open it.

You find yourself back at the beginning with the things you hated most. Yet, now you wonder why you did such a thing. Inside that box are not traits and memories that disgust you, but things you realize meant the most. You scoop them up and hold them close, knowing that they are you as well, that you are what you are today because they existed. And deep inside yourself you feel thankful for all the pain and sadness because you know the smile on your face today is real. (: