I am a product girl. I love things......alot. I love throw pillows, vintage junk and every beautiful color palate of eye makeup. (well, not blue or green, that just feels wrong.) I have magazines stuffed with projects and cookbooks I promise to use someday. I collect coffee mugs from all my travels and they are too numerous now to fit in my cupboard.
I love my home and all the quirky mismatch of heirloom handy downs and junk store finds. When I walk through the door it feels right somehow, like it's me. It's a collection of all I love. But as the kids have grown, one married with children, one working her career, one sharing an apartment with friends, one off to college, and one doing her teenage high-school, work, and jujitsu thing, my home has changed. The hustle and bustle of a house alive and noisy, with projects, messes and suckers stuck to the coffee table are reserved for those precious days when the grand-kids spend the day.
When all the kids return home for celebrations and get togethers, its a loud noisy commotion that anyone on the outside would have cause to run for the hills! But I love it. I soak it all in and can't wipe the smile from my face. These are my people. This is home to me.
When my children were little I wouldn't let them throw a ball in the house, because obviously they would break everything! I remember this one day, I went to pick my kids up from my moms, and there she was playing catch with them right in the middle of the living room. I couldn't believe my eyes! And I told my kids, "This is not the mother I grew up with. She had rules! She was NOT this fun! " But my mom knew something that I too, would eventually embrace. People are more important than our things.
I share a car with three of my children. It doesn't bother me to do so. At times it bothers them and their sibling rivalry rears it's head, and at times it even bothers others. On a good day there are empty Starbucks cups, water bottles and backpacks inhabiting the cup holders, floor and backseat. On a bad day, half eaten sandwiches, lipstick melted in the cup holder, and OMG what is that horrible smell, gym clothes.
Now I am not a Pollyanna. I am not a saint, and I am not a pushover. I just love my people more than I love my things. Life is full of tragedies my friends, but a few things left behind in my car isn't one of them.
Everything I have, I freely share with my children. A few years ago one of my boys asked to borrow my waffle irons for a youth group sleep over breakfast. "Of course!" The afore mentioned waffle irons never returned to said pantry. Actually I didn't even notice for quite a while. After church on Sundays I would always ask, "waffles or pancakes?" And then I noticed... And every Sunday after that I asked, "waffles or pancakes, OH wait.... waffles is off the table, " and we would all laugh. It became a running joke in our house for a few years. (Actually every Sunday.) Then on my birthday, several years later, my son presented his gift to me with a twinkle in his eye. You guessed it. A waffle iron! I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. Do I care about my waffle iron? No, even though I love waffles, I love my beautiful incredible son immeasurable more!!!
I love my home. I love the pictures of my family that grace my walls. I love the scrapbooks that delicately embrace all the moments of my children's lives. I love my favorite old ratty cowboy hat that makes me feel safe and comfortable in my own skin on a bad day. But I love the people who inhabit my heart, that have permanently imprinted their love, their tenderness and their beautiful soul upon me forever.
I will cry with my dear friend over a broken heart, but I wont cry over my broken heart shaped vase. I will drop everything if my parents have a need, but I wont drop everything to read my favorite book. I will forget who broke my favorite coffee mug, but I will not forget who broke my child's heart.
Take away all my things "possessions" and I will still be the richest person alive, because I have my people. They have way more value than anything I could ever own.