Posted on 12/30/2003 11:33:32 PM PST by bellevuesbest
Seize the good stuff.
A couple of months ago, a friend bought me a bottle of pink champagne to celebrate a job I'd landed and we talked about popping it open on the spot. But we'd gotten together for an early pizza dinner on a school night and it would have wrecked us for the rest of the evening and how could we manage laundry, bills, and loose ends — all the things we'd squeeze in later after the kids were in bed.
Now my friend is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer and we can't share the wine. No alcohol for her until at least March.
I wished we'd drunk it that night and let the laundry pile up.
Having friends and family struggle with illness and loss recently, I realize it doesn't make sense to hoard the good stuff for a perfect opportunity that may have already passed.
And it's not just wine — what about the good chocolates, the fancy crackers, the special coffees that get saved? For me, if I have gourmet coffee, it is usually stored in the back of the cabinet or the fridge until, one morning, I run out of Chock Full O' Nuts and have to grind the good blend just to save my marriage. Then I think, I can't believe we're having this delicious coffee on an average morning. And yet, what a treat.
And we should all use the darn guest soap.
I had little flower-shaped soaps and seashells and seasonal smelling things I saved and saved. Finally, I put them all out. We'll get more, or maybe we won't, but what are we saving them for? The kids will get them all smeary and dirty and leave them in a puddle of water melting away on the edge of the sink and that's just the way it is.
My husband goes batty over the amount of baby things I've stored away, especially since our "baby" is four years old. I have a wee bit of trouble giving things away or throwing them out.
A recent fire in a nearby town taught me that I can quickly fill a half-dozen garbage bags with clothes from my precious stored stash and even from our own dresser drawers. The thought of all those families who instantly had nothing made the decision easier. How many turtlenecks or winter jackets do we need?
And if there was an item so sentimentally or historically valuable to me that I couldn't part with it, I pulled it out and started using it. Why should woolen blankets from my firstborn's carriage sit in the attic until the moths eat them? I tossed them on the couch as throws or across the foot of a bed for the extra cold nights.
It made me happy to see the things I love rather than saving them out of sight indefinitely. Or to know that some baby is warm in an Italian designer snowsuit that was a gift and all this time I felt I couldn't part with it. It wasn't doing anyone any good here.
This New Year's Eve, I will go to bed thankful that, every night in spite of the little strains of modern life — interest rates, school fees, car repairs — we have a roof over our heads and warm blankets on the bed. Those warm blankets might have been fought over every night for the last dozen or so years, but they are still warm and even the person stealing them every 20 minutes is pretty nice as husbands go.
Downstairs, there are three kids who can exhibit whining tendencies and the potential to be addicted to television during this over-stimulating time of year. But those are the biggest potential problems of the week and for that we are truly grateful.
Guest soap anyone?
— Susan Konig, a journalist, has just written a book, Why Animals Sleep So Close to the Road (And Other Lies I Tell My Children), which will be published in 2004.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.