Recently I read a book by Jennifer Weiner called The Summer Place. It was about a family that were "stuck" together during the time of Covid when it first took hold. They all ended up encapsulated in the parents home, husband, wife, and children, like many of us.
Because they had "time on their hands," the husband began purging the house of non-essential stuff, in his eyes. Wow, that book triggered some marriage stuff for me. The Hubby is constantly trying to get me to get rid of "MY STUFF" because he sees no need for it, he has no use for "MY STUFF." How do we get to those places. We have been married for nearly 47 years now and we have amassed a lot of stuff. It's not just in piles everywhere, well, maybe in my closet there is, and I've tried to cull, we all do at times. But why in the hell is it always "MY STUFF" that he wants to get rid of. I can tell you why, it's because the house is mostly my domain and anything he deems to collect or hang on to he conveniently has buildings to store the stuff. I don't have that luxury. That desire of his to get rid of "MY STUFF" can set me off sometimes, it's not pretty.
When do we start that keepsake thing. I know for a fact that I did start in childhood. When we were children, my siblings and I would go to Greatgranny's for a week in the summer, and we frequently went to the local junk store. Oh goodness, that was great fun and I decided that I would start collecting for my hope chest, dishes to be exact. Lord knows I don't have any of those things now, well, maybe a couple of knick-knacks. But in my era of growing up there was still the concept of a hope chest, marriage is the future.
I had a hope chest. You see that trunk under the bird cage (that's Bird, the parakeet.) That trunk I had was given to me by my Greatgranny. It belonged to her sister Mary, who died after her appendix ruptured, she was 16 years old. The trunk was in an outbuilding on the property and not in good shape. At the time a friends mother fixed up trunks and gave me pointers to fix this one up. I worked and worked on it, sanding, staining, lining the inside, all to be MY hope chest. I still have that trunk and it still holds a lot of memorabilia, pictures, letters, my mother's wedding dress, my wedding dress...
In the 70's and before, all the future had to hold for most young women, me included, was to get married and have children. I was not different in that desire. I filled that trunk with all kinds of things I thought I needed when I got married, tea towels, dishes, salt & pepper shakers, hope chest kinds of things.
I really didn't have any other kind of prospects or encouragement from my parents or grandparents for anything else. I was an okay student because I just did what I needed to do, no more than was needed to get out of high school and fulfill that dream.
I did just that with average grades. I graduated, worked in my Daddy's machine shop for a bit, met a guy and got married.
Don't get me wrong it WAS what I wanted and I achieved my goal, and it was the best thing ever. I have had a wonderful life. Sure there have been ups and downs, you can't be married for 47 years and not have ups and downs. It is a journey and I would not trade it for anything. My life is the best, I have two wonderful daughters and two beautiful granddaughters and a precious grandson on the way, two great SON'S-in-law! It IS what I wanted out of life. In achieving that goal I did add going on to college and 13 short years later I received my bachelors degree. We have also maintained a highly successful business for 43 of those 46 years. Honestly it has been the best life I could have ever had.
No comments:
Post a Comment