I am home and relatively healthy this holiday break, so I am gutting my apartment. Today I started small: the bathroom.
I have one large drawer in my bathroom, where I throw extra lip gloss, hair manipulator, toothpaste, and makeup. That large drawer was a disaster, so part of the gutting included clearing it out and organizing its contents. I found seven unopened tubes of lip gloss, a couple of errant earrings, travel size deodorant, and in the far back of the drawer, I found it.
The banished bracelet that the boy gave me for my birthday. I hadn’t thrown it away, but I hadn’t remembered where I’d put it, either. Until I found it today.
I held it between my fingers for a moment and thought about what I should do.
I could:
A) Send it to the Land of Torn-Up Letters, Shredded Clothes and Voo-Doo Teddy Bears, where I had sent so many other evidences of affections from other boys.
B) Give it to my nieces for their dress-up box.
C) Tuck it neatly in the bottom of my small jewelry pouch, so it would be out of my sight, but still in my life as a reminder that one year on my birthday, a boy gave me jewelry.
What would you do?
C, because sometimes life takes turns that no one can control; but it doesn't mean that it didn't mean anything.
C. Definitely C. And if, in a year, you want to ceremoniously destroy it, I'll help. But chances are in a year you'll be glad you kept the reminder.