To me a box of chocolates can represent hope, deliciousness, and choices. So we see what we want to see when we open the box! If one such assortment is presented as a gift, we can enjoy each piece to completion, or take tester bites and scrap the ones that aren’t to our particular liking.
I like to make good on my offer of sharing with my beau Michael so I often “share” with him the pieces I think he should try– and yes, some might fall into the category of ones I’ve already sampled and decided that a one bite wonder they were not, but he’s so kind-hearted and generous that he views these offerings as an act of love and not a leftover attempt to get rid of the undesirables. (Yep, you can say it. He’s waaay too good for me! Believe me, I know.)
No offense to Forrest Gump, but sometimes fancy chocolate boxes include those picture menus right on the top after you pull off the curly ribbons, so actually you do know exactly what you’re going to get. And on occasion, a box can be a refuge– like for Elle Woods in the movie Legally Blonde. After the boneheaded Warner Huntington III dumps her blonde ass for his Harvard Law School plans, Elle decides to sample bites from an entire box of brown foiled paper sweets and ends up chucking most of the half-eatens at the television in frustration. (I don’t actually think any chocolates were harmed in the making of that movie so don’t worry. They were just stunt chocolates. I know! Whew.) I once threw flowers away in frustration over a man, but I’d never be foolish enough to throw away chocolate.
I have to say that Forrest was onto something when he said that life sure isn’t always what we expect. I read a quote long ago that comes to mind. “The quality of our lives is directly related to the amount of uncertainty we can live with comfortably.” For an on the spectrum control freak like me, that number tends to register in the low to not at all section of the graph. The uncertainty part I totally get– it’s the being comfortable with it that makes me… well, uncomfortable!
We certainly have some control over being healthy, hopefully a bit of influence over becoming wealthy, and an enormous say over becoming wise, or remaining a bonehead like Warner. So I make a conscious effort to include hope, deliciousness and choices in my everyday life, not just when I eat chocolate. Besides, we can’t rely on a big box of candy to make our day… or can we?
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