My Morning Cup – 7.13.13

Change is on the wind again.  Part of my family will be moving out of the house before summer is gone.  It’s happened before.  With three kids it had to or I would likely have gone batty.  And, while some of the leavings were fraught with worry and concern, most of them have been happy witnesses to growth and maturity.  This is one such leaving.  Their lives took a detour and now they are planning a future that will help them both become the people they are meant to be.  I am excited to watch as they spread their wings again!!

Since there’s not a lot of money, there won’t be a lot of purchases.  And that’s ok.  There was a time when the idea of “all new stuff” was a big part of moving into a new place and setting up “home”, but these days folks are finding all sorts of new uses for old stuff and the end results are so much nicer and more interesting than what’s coming off the containers from China.  Because there’s not a lot of money, I’ve had to resort to entering the garage, a place I try very hard to steer clear of, and pulling out the boxes of dishes I stashed there several years ago when the last of our kids had made that first move to the greener pastures of a home of her own and I’d felt the need for something new as well.  At the time, our collective family seemed to have an entire generation of fledglings and most were willing to take our cast-offs.  So I got in the habit of never getting rid of anything useful, just in case.

I had no sure idea of what was in the boxes; I thought dishes, certainly, and silverware, but I had forgotten the patterns.  It turns out there are remnants of two sets, his and mine, from our own days of setting up house together.  It was fun to show them to him, to remind him of our beginnings, so many years ago.

I won’t be sad to give away our dishes.  It’s the reason I saved them to begin with.  And maybe, just maybe, she’ll be sitting in her new house one day soon, that little red-haired boy nearby, their breakfasts on our old plates and her tea in one of our old cups, and she’ll remember this house where she grew up.  And it will make her smile.