Today found me without my car and with nothing to do, nothing, that is, but laundry, dishes, and organizing. I wish to be a minimalist, and despite my desire and relative success, I still find myself with one small box of things that I'll never use yet can't bear to throw away. I suppose the amount of useless treasure which to myself is espoused is laudable, if compared to the houses and rooms full of junk that most people claim, as is the nature of these ineradicable objects: books and textbooks, school supplies, and my sentimental memorabilia whose number I regulate most severely, yet guilt pounds through my mind unmercifully every time a glance is timidly thrown towards the corner in which this small box resides. The letters and bits of sentiment are seldom read but can never be thrown away, much like my books. The eighteenth-century pornography literature that I was required to buy for my analysis of pornography class are books that the bookstore will not buy back, and I would feel like a lecherous smut peddler if I distastefully gave them to goodwill. Unfortunately, it is a matter of principle, as is every other issue that speckles my livelihood: I simply cannot bring myself to throw away books, regardless of their nature, and I refuse to sell back a $135 calculus textbook for thirteen dollars, even if it is somewhat pretentious and pointless to keep it. And pretentious it truly is; I have every intention of putting that textbook on my bookcase, though I'll never, ever use it, because I would like to fancy myself as the type of individual in need of a good calculus book, though nothing could be so indubitably farther from the truth. And though I am a passionate reader, I keep the books that I did not enjoy, and I even keep the books that I absolutely loathed so that the occasional visitor to my abode might be bamboozled into thinking that I'm well-rounded. The reasons for my keeping these items is almost as shameful as the fact that I stubbornly keep them.

With the exception of the school supplies, whose potential use is infinitely more promising than any other of the box's inhabitants, I know I will never open the box. It will slowly collect dust and the unequivocal, stale fragrance of old age as it sits and sits and sits with nothing to do and no service to provide. I will move from one city to the next and curse under my breath as I heave it along, and allot it precious closet space in various tiny apartments. To my nature I will stay true; simple, minimal furniture will adorn my future spaces, and my ability to avoid the purchase of unpurposed items will not wane, but the one manifestation of my fault will always be that wretched box. Its contrary, inescapable nature will be the filmy, pale blue eye of my existence, and instead of a heart beneath my floorboards I shall forever have a cardboard coffer in my closet.