Dolly Mama Strikes Again!

Before I start my work day I thought I'd tell you this one little thing from the other day.

I was reorganizing a shelf, and in the process was sorting crayons, markers, colored pencils, regular pencils, pens, glue sticks, and so on. Then I went on to sharpen all the pencils.

In that process, amidst all of the cute pencils my kids have gotten from school ("My principal is proud of me!" "Reading first" "Welcome to the first day of school!") I found a simple, slightly worn red pencil with fading gold stamped letters on it. What did it say? My original name.

It was a pencil that I've probably had since 3rd grade or something.

And there it was, in my hands. A link to the past.

I actually cried a little while I looked at that antique pencil. I guess that as I get older, and as my children get older, and there is more distance between my origins, my past, and my present, maybe it doesn't even seem like what used to be was real. I cried for the girl that used to be. For her strengths, her weaknesses, her victories and defeats. For the roads I took and the ones I didn't. For all the stuff that got mixed in to bring me to who I am today. Not crying in a where-did-I-go-wrong sort of way. Just a wow-isn't-life-wierd-how-you-actually-do-grow-up-and-move-on-and-grow-and-change and feel like the past and the present are both equally out of your reach. Or something like that.

I don't know. Having PMS plus reading a sad book both surely contribute to the melancholy symbolism of it all. Still, though, wouldn't it mean something to you if a little symbol of your past ended up in your hands when you least expected it?

I hope I can manage to hang on to that pencil for a long time.