Is there something wrong with me? I like other people’s discarded things. One of my favorite possessions is my aunt’s small, old shovel. It is probably 5” x 8,” with a broomstick-sized handle. My Aunt Mary used this little shovel for years to plant her flowers and vegetables. She probably used it to help me make a wildflower garden when I was about ten years old.
She is dead now, so this is kind of an inheritance. This is socially acceptable and even admired, along with having antiques. I have many other things, large and small, given to me when a loved one died. I sleep every night in my grandmother’s bed, and turn on my mother’s lamp. I walk on my deceased daughter’s Oriental rugs, and eat off my mother-in-law’s china. I could go on and on: an ancient glider, jewelry, books, and even transplanted shrubs. I love these things in a special way and even talk to them when no one is around.
But, alas, what concerns me is that I love all hand-me-downs, second-hand clothes, and doo-dads. I learned to sew as a teenager by altering a rich aunt’s beautiful size 40 dresses to fit my size 10. I go into a consignment shop with the zeal of a social worker with a new problem family to fix. I find things that need to be lengthened, shortened, or altered to fit me better. For some peculiar reason, it gives me satisfaction to rescue something abandoned and give it new life. Doesn’t everything want to be used and cherished?
If the truth be told, even my two husbands had been married before, so they were second-hand. All my children are stepchildren, so they are hand-me-downs. But they have fit me well with very little alteration!
So, there is something wrong with me. Where is the desire for the shiny new? The mine-all-mine feeling? Maybe these used things make me feel closer to those I loved and a little connected to those other unknown souls. All I know is that my collections and belongings have been happily saved from abandonment and are a comfort to me and leave me very happy. Or maybe I am just cheap!
Jeanette Smith, a Blythewood resident, has been active in the community’s civic affairs for over 50 years.
