Finding Things

This morning, I cried.

I looked at one of the final boxes that I had not unpacked after moving to Rhode Island a year ago, and something caught my eye.  I almost dismissed the need to open it thinking it was just some of this and that.

Well, I couldn't be more wrong.

In that box, it was filled with memories and precious things.

Things like reminders of the good work I have done in the world that I buried under my self-esteem, my forgetting due to shame.  I also found artifacts from my darling daughter's early years.  Things like mementos from her first birthday and other babyhood treasures.

I also found my missing Christmas ornaments. I thought that they were lost forever, and with them, some of my herstory.

I cried and cried.

Last holiday season, as Lila and I began our tradition of decorating our tree in our new home for the first time, I couldn't find my precious ornaments.  My heart deflated and sadness filled it back up.

I love my things.  I know it isn't very zen of me but my things have stories attached to them. And, I only keep things that have good stories.  Like my red velvet chair that I have moved countless times.  It reminds me of when I arrived in Portland, Oregon in the fall of 1995.  Starting one of the biggest adventures of my adult life.  It was one of the first pieces of furniture I purchased for myself. Like my $20 paper Ikea lamp that I purchased on a shopping trip with my friend, Carla. She is my favorite travel companion and one of the most generous souls I know. It is with me here in Providence.  Like the butterfly ceramic cup that my longtime friend, Dottie, gave to me during our last visit in Pennsylvania a few months ago. I have known her since 1987 and we remain friends.  The sculpture I picked up in Baltimore, Maryland when I went to visit Lesley, a friend who is no longer in my life due to some unspoken hurt. But I have that art that I look at everyday and I am reminded of that visit in 2007, when life was really shitty but that visit brought me joy.

The list goes on and on.

We are warned not to be attached to our material things but mine are filled with love and I wouldn't change it for the world. It is my history and reminds me to a certain degree of my belonging, especially when I feel lonely, forgotten, invisible.

I quickly sent a text to my darling daughter about the find and she is thrilled, too.  In four months, we will stand by our second tree since moving to Rhode Island and decorate it with our history.  I know that there will be moments of tears because of some much that is behind us but there will also be joy because we are together making a new history.

This is a lesson for me. A lesson that the impossible can certainly be possible, which is something that I will always need reminding, especially during times of transition.  What I love about that is, it is like a little treasure of goodness that can fill a room with hope.

Merry Christmas!