The Meaning in a Mailbox

My house shares a short access road with three neighbors. At the end of that road sit four identical mailboxes. They’re metal quadruplets painted black with red flags on the side — or they were when I installed them twenty-some years ago.

Over time they became skeletons of mailboxes. Even though each one died long ago and went to mailbox heaven, we continued to use them with one concession after another.

For example, one mailbox was missing its flag, so you had to cross your fingers that Adam the mailman would see the letter you were mailing. Another required closing its door several times before it would remain shut briefly. The third mailbox was crunched and deformed, so it argued with you each time you opened its door. The last quadruplet sported address numbers that were so flaked and peeling, it looked like it had a terrible flu.

The mailboxes had seen better days.

There’d been many neighborhood discussions over the years about what we’d do for new mailboxes. There was perusing the internet for design ideas, and deliberations on landscaping to replace the intractable weeds. There were lots of ‘let’s replace them this spring’ and then ‘let’s definitely do it this summer’, and this would cycle around to the next year.

None of this was because we didn’t want to do something. I think it was simply because life can get busy, and inertia sets in when what’s routine isn’t killing you. Plus, since the mailboxes were on my property, I’m sure my neighbors didn’t feel they could just barge over to my yard and begin the project.

Fresh eyes to stressed eyes

Then one day a few weeks ago I was getting my mail and a switch flipped in me. For some reason, I saw the mailboxes with fresh eyes. They weren’t the functioning metal boxes that looked awful. They were barely functioning.

That did it. The time had come to replace them. What’s more, a lightbulb went off in my brain. I could make the new mailboxes a surprise for my beloved neighbors! I’d do most of the work at my house and then install the new mailbox unit early on a Sunday morning before people woke up. Wouldn’t that be a happy surprise?

Excitement shot through my veins. I couldn’t wait to get started.

I thought through the steps. I’d need to get new mailboxes, new brackets, a new wooden plank, new address stickers, landscaping stones, and deer-resistant plants. I’d need to weatherproof the wood, straighten the two metal bases, remove the old system, and screw in the new system.

I researched online, shopped numerous times at Lowes and Home Depot, and began a slow descent into indecisiveness. There were too many variables that were piling up, one on top of the other — intertwining, interdepending, tangling, and time-warping.

My brain looked like this.

Suddenly, I was stuck and unhappily so. It was ironic that I was grappling with something I wanted to do and that I loved the idea of. How could this be? I love to do home projects. I love to make things prettier. Yet, I was increasingly stressed about this project.

This is the very thing I do in coaching with clients. Now I needed to apply some of that insight-inducing love to myself.

I homed in on what I was feeling. Confusion, stress, indecisiveness, and stuck. No matter how I tried to figure out a plan of action, I came up to a wall. If I did the project this way, I ran into a problem. If I did it that way, a different problem arose. I had various criteria that I demanded I adhere to.

My brain was caught in a snarl of have-to.

Keep in mind, this all meant I was unhappy about getting beautiful, shiny new mailboxes that would be the best thing that happened to our tiny neighborhood in ever.

What an odd thing, our brain. It has so many inclinations and habits that it can do somersaults all over itself while frozen still. Brain, you’re my favorite mystery.

Hitting pause

I hollered over to myself, Heads up, Steph! We’re going to take a breather here and look at what’s going on.

I sat myself down.

What’s the matter, honey?

I thought about that. What was the matter? Why did I feel stressed?

It took barely a minute before I realized the issue. At the very center of all this was my insistence the mailbox project be a surprise gift. A surprise was a great idea and very exciting, however, it was too much of a burden when coupled with the logistics and timeline of the project. More than anything, it was becoming too stressful a project to fit onto the plate of my other responsibilities. The fun factor had been squelched.

I needed to put the fun back in.

I decided that by taking a day to install the new mailbox unit I’d still be mostly surprising my neighbors. The installation might then be comfortable, and even fun. I could enlist my husband for some help, too. Suddenly, I went from stuck to energized.

All I did was loosen the screws on the perfect plan I’d fastened tightly into my brain. I let go of a part of the surprise in exchange for feasibility.

By taking a few minutes to reflect and be honest, I created clarity on what was bugging me and a new direction that gave birth to a far more enjoyable project.

Suddenly, full steam ahead was I.

New direction, happy ending

In the end, the mailboxes turned out beautifully. My ‘perfect surprise’ was replaced by something far better. While I worked on the landscaping, I got visits from my neighbors, son, and dog walkers passing by. Even my mailman stopped to see what was going on. He was especially pleased.

One of my neighbors brought her adorable three-year-old niece down to the mailboxes to draw flowers with chalk on the pavement next to me. This was the cherry on top. I stopped what I was doing to play and draw and live in the moment.

What was meant to be a surprise turned into a bit of a party with everyone cheering me on. It became clear that alternate plan B’s can turn out better than their original counterparts. Plan B’s might simply be part of the evolution of how we go about life.

At one point, as I troweled my way through stubborn grass to create a planting bed at the mailbox base, something dawned on me.

“Steph,” I said, “The last time you did this was twenty years ago. You’re 57 now. This will likely be the last time you’ll ever do something like this for these four mailboxes in your life.”

Then a small tear sprung from my eyes. This project I’d agonized over, debated, and deliberated over, which I was now enjoying under a beautiful blue sky — this was caretaking of my home that wouldn’t happen again.

From that moment forward, I reveled in my special mailbox project. You can’t imagine how much meaning four ordinary mailboxes can have. It’s more than I would have thought.