You never know what ends up important in your life. Certainly, I never knew. People go on and on over the vapidness of material things and how our family and friends are all that should matter to us, so naturally I took on the same viewpoint. Besides, they weren’t wrong.

That all changed when I returned home from a particularly bad day at school, gripped with a frantic urge to remember. Remember what, I had no idea.

Determined and more than a little panicked, I grabbed an old shoebox from a cupboard and began throwing items into it - keepsakes and mementos of my strange, ever-changing life. Photographs of me as a child, seashells I found on a bus seat once upon a time, postcards from Singapore, farewell gifts from my relatives in Pakistan - nothing was spared.

When I was done, I looked at my creation over-flowing with memories and felt a surge of silent pride flow through me. I kept the box underneath my bed, among suitcases and old, empty packages from Australian post offices, and settled into bed enjoying the feeling of being anchored to something.

That raggedy hunk of cardboard ended up being one of my most prized possessions. It joined me wherever I went, indeed acting as the anchor I imagined it to be all those years ago.

When I left Pakistan, it served as a reminder that I once survived and lived in this war-torn country, even though my future seemed bleak here. Returning from a radically different Singapore, an event occurring just a few months ago, it kept me grounded and stopped me from falling into the familiar abyss of feeling like I’d never have a home. Or at least, a proper, permanent home.

Once, it was full of photographs and keychains, magnets and bracelets, badges and nail polish. But after such a long time and so many experiences, it only holds four things in it now that are my most important objects: a jade bangle from my late grandmother, a photo of me hosting an event in my old school, a badly cropped photo of my best friend, and a blurry printout of my sister at an American café.

Truly, the things that matter most to us tend to be the most unexpected. For me, it was a box. A simple, unassuming box that now holds the essence of my life. Life itself has a way of surprising us that way, keeping us on our toes constantly. Sometimes these surprises are for the better, maybe for the worse but whichever applies to you, remember never to take things, or people for that matter, for granted. You never know the role they’ll play in your life.