All my life’s meaningful physical possessions – including my high school diploma -- were contained in a shoebox when I was a young adult. Yet, I threw them all away in my early 20s in a feeling of anger and worthlessness. Growing up I had lived in the attic of my parents’ house. It was a threadbare room with just a mattress, an unusable desk and some steel shelves. I stored my clothes in a few cardboard boxes. I had little in the way of physical possessions. The few that I owned, I had accumulated in a shoebox. They included old gifts and cards from my first girlfriend, a signature from Doug Gilmour (the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs from the 1990s), my high school diploma, and other keepsakes. I moved out to live on my own in my first year of university as a result of my parents’ house having been foreclosed. My family would eventually regain possession of our home. But as I was no longer living there, I had given permission to them to rent out my room to help with expenses. Several years later I moved back in with my family and took over a…
