matt bell words

I found the box in my brother’s attic. I guess somewhere along the way I just assumed it found its way to a garbage can somewhere (possibly a rightful response to leaving my stuff at my brother’s house). I just wasn’t expecting to find it.  I’m not certain why I had gone up there in the first place. Regardless of the motive, I found it tucked back deep within the eave where the roof slopes rapidly into the floor.  It required a stealthy army crawl along the plywood flooring to avoid the roofing nails protruding through the sheathing above my head but the cost of dusty clothes seemed worth the price. There it was. A white bankers box with the handwritten scribble “My junk.” (How gentle I was in describing my possessions back then.) Though I had packed this box some eight years earlier, I still knew the gist of what I would find. “The gist” it turns out, is not preparation enough. As I swiftly removed the lid, it all hit me. No, not “contents under pressure.”  Nostalgia. Though this was most certainly not a memory box since memory boxes are for girls, it was filled to the brim with memories. Trophies from sports. Programs from various ceremonies and events. Newspaper clippings detailing accomplishments. Class pictures of friends.  A mug from prom etched with the phrase “I will remember you” along with a plastic crown (regal, I know). Countless other memories, some too embarrassing to mention, in this non-“memory box” box labeled “My junk.”

I don’t know what you remember about high school. I sometimes remember more than I would like to, thanks in part to boxes full of stuff I can’t bring myself to throw out. I remember freezing cold football games and long musical rehearsals, the solitude of study hall and the freedom of leaving campus for lunch with my friends.  I remember countless books and tests and A’s and F’s.  I remember having my heart broken.  I remember losing fifty dollars that I did not have gambling in a friend’s basement.  I remember face planting on a sopping wet golf course in the Poconos on Prom weekend.  I remember laughing really hard.  Sometimes for days.  I also remember hurting deeply, sometimes for longer.

For most of us I think the high school years are some of the most confusing. We want so much to be something, to be someone, that we attach ourselves to anything that promises identity. We join teams so we can be a part of something. We study hard so we can get into somewhere. We make friends so we can belong with someone. Belong. We want so desperately just to belong.  Mixed with this confusion was an overwhelming sense of fear.

What if I’m not a part of something?

What if I don’t get into somewhere?

What if I don’t belong anywhere?

I remember the fear of not belonging being enough to make an insecure high school student desperate, and desperation is an ugly beast.  That beast told me that true belonging would be fully realized if I would just be what everyone wanted me to be.  I wasn’t so sure, but the ugly beast assured me it knew best.  So I became like a Mr. Potato Head, adding to myself whatever would make me look more human among my peers, minus Mrs. Potato Head’s parts because there has to be a line somewhere.

It’s actually quite surprising what can happen for you when you let the ugly beast guide you.  At first you may actually be caught off guard by the words you hear coming out of your own mouth – because you don’t really feel that way about that person and you know mom would not approve of the use of that word, whether as an adjective or a noun.  It gets easier and easier, however, as people start moving towards you to see what you might say next, because you’re funny, and they like that.  They really like that.  And inch by inch, you have earned your way in.  You now belong.  Well someone belongs…but it’s not really you.

So, on that winter day deep within a frosty attic, a stark reality was brought to light.  All of these things I was, I no longer am. Sure there is something to be said about these experiences making me into who I am, but I don’t mean it like that.  I’m talking about the way in which a fearful and confused high school boy utterly clung to these things as proof that he was something.  I can no longer cling to them.  No one in my world cares if I was a lead role in a musical.  No one loves me because I was prom king.  I can no longer find belonging in that.  My world just doesn’t spin that way.  It’s like the college student that still hangs out in the high school parking lot in his letterman jacket.  At some point, the jacket must come off.  These things that I found myself in got lost somewhere along the way between the Christmas decorations and my dad’s collection of Popular Mechanic magazines.  In the midst of gold-sprayed plastic and yellowing papers with curled edges, I somehow ended up in a banker’s box in the attic.

And the irony of it all?  Some ten years later, it still feels really good to lift that lid sometimes.  Maybe not physically like the bankers box in the attic, but you know what I mean.  Someone starts talking about football or whatever your thing was and your mind begins thinking how to work in the fact that you were the starting QB for your high school football team or the first who-who for the varsity what-what (extra points if you could not only work it into the conversation, but lead them to ask more).  You catch a glimpse of interest and admiration in their tone and, honestly, it’s compelling.  So you tell a little more (and exaggerate just a little) and pretty soon, the warm rays of approval are shining down upon your skin.  And that’s when you feel it.  Belonging.  In that moment, you belong.

I mean to take nothing away from you.  I love remembering the past (half the reason I can’t throw the box away).  There is nothing like sitting around with old friends laughing about the time someone said something to someone at that somewhere.  It just brings a smile to my face thinking about it.  Certainly we can visit those moments, those days when life was different than it is now…but we cannot live there.  I guess what I’m saying is this- if I am not growing…if I am not letting new people and experiences into my life…if I am not setting the past aside and living in this present reality…and I mean really present…than I might as well be in a trophy case in the school gym or in a yearbook on the bookshelf or in a white banker’s box deep within my brother’s attic.

“If you could be known for anything, what would you want it to be?” I remember hearing that question several times in grade school, though it may have manifested itself in different ways, such as “what do you want to be when you grow up” or “what do you want people to say about you at your funeral?” (Which incidentally, that last one makes me think of that joke that ends with “Look! He’s breathing!” I don’t care who you are. That’s funny.) Regardless of how it’s phrased, the question is the same. What do you want to be known for? I am yet to meet a person that really doesn’t care about the answer to this question. “I hope that when my life ends I will have made not one single contribution to the human race, all the while living a life of obscurity and ambiguity, resulting in a silent passing in the night whose effect is only measured by the space it takes to write about it in the Obituary section.” We just don’t say this. I think the truth is, we really do care what we’re known for. We care deeply. We try hard. Really hard.

When I was ten, I had some stomach issues. I’m not talking about the “I ate too much and if I see another fast food commercial on TV it’s going to get ugly” type of stomach issues. I used to get these ridiculously terrible pains in my stomach that resulted in a visit to the Emergency Room. This happened multiple times but I only remember one of the incidents clearly. This particular night I woke up with some discomfort in the basket. The discomfort quickly escalated into a pain that can only be described as a cross between getting stabbed in the gullet with a Ginzu knife and someone parking their camper in your small intestine. It became clear that this was not going away, nor was I going to wait and see. I came to a conclusion; I needed to call in backup. I started down the hallway to my parent’s bedroom to wake someone up. I paused at the door. Entering my parent’s room was always an uncomfortable moment. Not necessarily because of that, but rather because their room was somewhat off limits and I never really understood why. I imagined it would be like the movies where someone opens a door and a blinding white light reveals a room ablaze with poker tables, a three ring circus, or a herd of galloping minotaurs. As I stood there outside the door, hearing no hooves and smelling no cotton candy, I proceeded to quietly turn the knob and open the door. I made my way through the dark past my dad, who was immoveable once asleep, to my mom’s side of the bed. Bending down in order to position my face several inches from hers, I whispered “Mom!” After my mom put her skin back on, she informed me it would be better if I would just “jiggle the knob” and enter the room loudly rather than sneaking up and scaring her half to death. This seemed logical enough, though it didn’t really answer the minotaur question.

“What is it, Matthew?”

My mom brought me in to the ER late that night. I was writhing in pain but doing my best to appear like it didn’t hurt that much but still hurt enough that I belong there. You don’t want to hoot and holler so that all the people in the waiting room begin whispering, trying to figure out what in the world could possibly be wrong, while all the small children bury their faces in mom or dad’s jacket sleeve from the sheer horror of the situation. On the other hand, you don’t want to stroll in as if you mistook the hospital for a mall while doing some light shopping before taking in a movie. It’s a sensitive balance really. After a short wait and a long clipboard, my mom and I approached the counter. I continued rehearsing just what I would say over and over again in my head. This is critical. You don’t want to leave with fewer parts than you came with.

“How can we help you”?

“Directions to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, please.” “Genie in a bottle with three, no four wishes!” “World peace and giant biceps.” There are many answers to such a question but I imagine she was speaking medically and so that is how I approached the question. Here was the problem in that moment. Talking with the nurse next to mine was another person in line who was one step ahead of me in explaining why he was there. Correction: he was accompanied by a police officer who was so kind as to describe for this patient why he was visiting the ER that night. The patient was a young white male. I don’t know how old he was but I assumed he was in his late teens, as he had facial hair that I at ten and my brother at thirteen didn’t. He was wearing baggy clothes and a bandana on his head. Just below the bandana was a large gauze pad he was holding tightly to his forehead. His face had various other scrapes and cuts. I remember hearing the police officer describe the details of the “gang fight” this upstanding young man had been a part of. It was enough to make an already burning stomach queasy. The nurse then proceeded to ask him a long list of seemingly unnecessary questions. Now I’ve never been in a gang fight (it’s on the bucket list), but I’m pretty sure that the date of the last measles vaccination is irrelevant. That is, unless the opposing gang was birthed under the banner of spreading measles throughout the entire tri-state region. In that case a measles vaccination would be very appropriate. After the nurse was finished gathering information (he’s a Capricorn and enjoys long walks on the beach), it was gang fight boy’s turn to share. In his account of the incident, he mentioned getting hit in the head with a lead pipe, hence the gauze pad and steady direct pressure. Man, a lead pipe to the head. I’m sure that hurt like the Dickens, but what a story!

“How can we help you?”

This was directed at me. It was my turn to reveal my ailment…my “battle scar.” Suddenly my pre-rehearsed story just sounded lame. To make matters worse, as gang fight boy awaited further instructions, he was now turned toward me. All of the sudden, I just wanted to go home. I didn’t care that my stomach hurt. I didn’t care that my mom had to recount our family’s medical history back to the early 19th century in order for me to be seen by a nurse. I just wanted go back to bed in hopes I could sleep it off. I didn’t want to stand there and declare out loud “My mommy brought me here because my tum tum is ouchy ouchy!”

I didn’t want the handcuffs or throbbing skull…but I sure wanted the lead pipe.

I don’t remember clearly how the rest played out. I do, however, remember being sent home with a diagnosis of “spastic colon.” Which I believe is cause for question…how did the word “spastic” ever come out of the medical community as a part of an official diagnosis? What are they even trying to say? I picture a colon hopped up on Red Bull that won’t stop babbling about the time it ran into the small intestine in a Wal-Mart in Florida. Sorry. That made no sense whatsoever. Colons would never vacation in Florida.

Anyhow, I can’t help but wonder, why was it so difficult for me to just admit what was really going on? I had issues. Who cares? Truth be told, I care. I care deeply. I try hard. Really hard. And I would be willing to guess I’m not the only one. Somehow I think we believe that all of the things we don’t like about ourselves, the things we fear others stumbling upon, the very things that hold us back, that these are what we will be known for. I am fairly certain “He had a spastic colon” will not be written in my obituary, but I still protected that sensitive information like a manila folder in a spy movie. For some reason in that moment in that hospital, I feared the rejection of a complete stranger who I would never share a single exchange of words with. Why? Because that is what insecurity does in us. We feel if this or that were to ever get out and come into the light, we would be exposed for what we truly are. And, when what we truly are is finally known, most certainly there is no one that could like us, dare love us. So we let others skim the surface, revealing just enough to make them like us but not enough to risk they won’t. We are the little boy in the shallow end convincing ourselves that the deep end is not worth the possibility of failing the swim test and looking stupid in front of the entire watching world. So we splash around in chest-high water, with the glimmer of the diving board in full view. We give in to our fears, letting them tell us who we are, who we will be, what we have become, all the while ignoring the one legitimate fear living among us…the fear of never being.

*I thought this essay I wrote a couple months back would be appropriate to post today, as it is my son’s fifth birthday.  Cody, your life is truly inspiring.

“There’s a human in the backseat and they’re not leaving for the next eighteen years!” My friend Mike laughs when he reminds me of the time I said this during a conversation. I was recalling when my wife and I left the hospital after the birth of my first child, Codyn. I clearly remember thinking that very thought as we pulled away from the patient loading area of Abington Memorial just outside of Philadelphia. Two days earlier, it was just my wife and I that had entered that hospital and now they were actually letting us leave with another human. What were they thinking? Didn’t they know we were just kids! I half expected to hear sirens and see flashing lights in the rear-view mirror as the authorities tracked us down, cuffed us, and threw us in the slammer for abducting a child. But there was nothing. No lights. No sirens. It was silent. I mean really silent. As the three of us drove really slowly down that road on the way to our apartment, the same road just two of us had traveled two days earlier, I had the overwhelming sense that life had drastically changed.

“There’s a human in the backseat and they’re not leaving for the next eighteen years.”

Those first days are somewhat of a blur. Between a heavy dose of diapers, bodily fluids, and napping (his and ours), I am foggy on the details. I recall my wife and I lying in bed one night wide awake, listening over the monitor to his breathing, making sure it didn’t stop, when the strangest thing happened. Cody started whimpering. The whimper turned into a small cry and pretty soon he was full out wailing. Then the wailing stopped and a little voice came over the airwaves. “Mama? Mama? Mom! Mom!” Completely stunned, my wife and I just looked at each other. Just as we were reaching for the phone to get our newborn genius child an enrollment packet for Harvard, a woman’s voice came over the monitor. We had been picking up another monitor signal in the apartment complex. We went the next day to exchange the monitors…but I still think my son is a genius.

I also recall countless times walking into Cody’s bedroom which just days before had been my office and peeking into his crib while he lay sleeping. I kept expecting it would be empty, confirming this was all a dream, but there he was. Bundled tightly, sleeping soundly, taking up just a small portion of his giant crib. He was so…small. So innocent. So helpless. If anything was going to happen for him, it would require something from us. He certainly wasn’t in a position to fend for himself. It became clear very quickly that we had not only become parents- we were now responsible for a human life.

“I love you.”

That was me. I had just said that. He had done nothing and yet the words came so easily. Before my kids crawled or took one step, I loved them. Before they said “daddy” or wrapped their little arms around me, I loved them. Before they drew pictures or earned good grades, I loved them. I love them because they are mine to love. I love them because they are wonderfully precious and exhaustively unique. I love them, period. I like to think it’s less of an action and more of a state of being. Certainly I love them, but they are loved. Period.

I believe it to be this way with our heavenly father. Before we ever did anything lovely or loveable, we were loved. I don’t know if he is impressed by the things we do on this earth. I kind of hope so. I sort of doubt it. But I do know this; impressed or not, these things have nothing to do with our being loved. That does not depend on us one iota. We were loved long before we could think of ways to earn it. As is true with most things, I suspect the confusion came with growing up…when we got just old enough to start thinking we can.