I have mentioned in previous blogs that while I am staying safer in my home I have been purging. Sometimes out of rage, which ironically creates the most movement in my progress.
Hmmmmmm, as I wrote those words I wonder if that is what is happening in the world right now. But this blog is not about that. Feel free to ponder on your own though.
This is about “hidden treasures” that I have unearthed in my purging and organizing. I can’t tell you how many hours I have spent going through piles of old toys and chests and dressers in guest rooms that were used to store holiday decorations and children’s artwork.
I have found Lego creations that are only missing a few pieces. This discovery has created a fire under my husband to find those last few pieces and complete these builds. That is a new treasure for me. He has now joined in the memory for me.
I have found a plethora of charging cables to phones that no longer exist I am sure. I will enlist the help of my kids to decipher that one though.
I have also found pictures and drawings and stories created by my children. All four of them. The oldest child is 32 and yes, I found treasures of hers as well. A tiny Tinkerbelle purse as well as the silk purse she used for her senior prom. The prom where she went with a dear friend so that I wouldn’t know she was actually meeting the boy I didn’t approve of.
I found trophies from sports my children played. Memories that were made not all that long ago yet are already fading.
I was not a good soccer mom, or ice hockey mom, or drama mom, or chorus mom, or band mom. I really didn’t enjoy these events or the endless practices they required me to attend. I admire those parents that are good at those things. But I also don’t beat myself up over things from my past. I did the best I could. My kids learned that I would always be here for them. I just wouldn’t always be smiling. I was human and therefore would be fallible.
I found things that were my grandmothers that I will keep until I am l ready to pass them on and hopefully one of the decedents will want them. If they don’t, they have brought me joy.
That’s the lesson here. Treasures are in the eye of the beholder. I treasure some things that are meaningless to others. They are priceless to me and trash to someone else.
Treasure what matters to you regardless of how someone else looks at it.
I will keep Nana’s fake pearls and her bible, and I will keep GG’s sewing scissors and 
feed bag tag. I will keep PopPop Horn’s enamel ware pot and my PopPop Beers’ lapel pin. I will keep safe the ring that represents the loving arms of my father wrapped around my mother, I will hold onto the tiny purse, the challis that holds guitar picks, the jar of Williamsburg nails and the drawing of our old hen. These are my treasures. What do you treasure?