Today It Went In Another Direction Entirely

We moved into a new house about a month ago. The packing and unpacking of my life’s belongings and keepsakes has puked up pieces of my hopes and dreams for my life. I meet those hopes and dreams as a child, a teenager, a university student, a young wife, a young mother, a clergyperson, a daughter, a mother of university and college students, a wife creating a financial future out of almost nothing for my retirement with my husband—and then it all comes to screeching halt in 2009. That’s when the dots began connecting, and I saw who he really was.

It was a few years more before I could fully grasp the abusive narrative that controlled my life and my children’s lives. It was a few years before I fully recognized the conga line of “treatment professionals” who blameshifted, gaslighted and diminished our life experiences trying to cope under that abuse. But when I did, I knew I had to save my life and model that for my sons so that they would not fall victim to the same injustice in their adult lives. And there’s nothing like telling the truth about a man to get you run out of town on a rail.

Packing and unpacking always resurrects the stories that go along with things going into boxes. I can see my trusting naivete, my hard work, my constant love and loyalty my patience, my enduring hope for tomorrow—and yes, that’s what I was bringing to the table every day because I made vows and kept them. It was my investment of everything that was good and true within me into a marriage with a man who lied his way through it all, clicked his heels and drove away but not without stealing a few of those dreams that he conned others into believing came out of him, instead of me!

It’s a little scary to pick up a book, a picture, a wedding gift and see with clarity where I was in that life to which they harken. Grief, bewilderment, rage, sorrow, and regret are packed and unpacked with every moving day.

But today went in another direction entirely. Today was teacup day.

I had carefully packed all the bone china teacups into a brand-new box (not a used one) and labelled it “D.R.” (dining room), “Cups and Saucers”, and “FRAGILE” in permanent marker. That wasn’t just for the movers. It was for me. My old house had two built-in china cabinets. This new house had none, and we weren’t moving one from Calgary, either. I didn’t want to touch those teacups until I’d figure out what I was going to do with them. So, they sat in the “D.R.” for over six weeks.

Today I realized there was a built-in lower cabinet in the living room, hand-crafted by the previous owner. It wasn’t huge, but it would take those teacups. So, I got right to work.

But as I unwrapped those gorgeous treasures of hand painting and sculpted shapes, there were no hauntings of brutalized hopes and dreams and the best years of my life stolen to serve a husband’s lies. And here’s why.

I have a friend from childhood with whom I reconnected since my divorce. She’s a bit quirky. Always was. I loved her. I’m a bit quirky too. After exchanging long catch-up emails, I learned about her adventures at her local dump. She was a picker. Part-time as she did have a “real” job. “Picking,” however, used her extensive knowledge of antiques gained over may decades and fed her sense of adventure in treasure-hunting. She just liked to see what there was to find at the dump. She called it all her “dumpware.”

So, one year she sent me a picture of her dining room table covered in dumpware—this time, teacups. Even from the pictures I recognized the shapes and styles of some of the finest makers.

“Did I want some?” she asked. “Of course, I answered.”  I arranged to stay a few days at her place and go through them with her. I couldn’t take all of them, so we also needed to figure out what she would do with the ones that I didn’t take. We had so much fun.

When I got home with a grand selection of the ones that tickled my fancy, I realized that few of the ones in my cabinets had ever really interested me. There were those from my mother’s collection that I wanted to keep, and a few others that connected me to people I wanted to remember. The lesser ones I weeded out, photographed and listed on Facebook Marketplace. They were all sold within days. Without even thinking about it, I had sold every teacup from every wedding shower that I had received. And because I had been marrying a minister, I got a lot of teacups.

So, when I opened my box of cups and saucers after this move, none of those teacups had followed me to this house. They were gone…replaced with “dumpware.” And that “dumpware” was lovely! My life just sometimes shakes out that way.

This morning I handled these new bone china friends as if they were old friends, arranging them carefully, loving their shapes and colors. I’m old and old fashioned, I guess. But perhaps the best part was putting the last of the old bone china friends into place. It was a truly special cup and saucer and well over fifty years old. At least, that’s how long I’d had it. I received it at my tenth birthday party from a friend, this same friend, the quirky friend with an eye for antiques and collectibles back then, and still. Sometimes you need to clear out the clutter in order to see the rich treasures of your life that are still yours. I did.

This week might be a tough week for many of us. It’s a season when expectations run high and often are not met. We unpack colourful, sparkly and precious things that spend almost a whole year packed away and still when we unpack them, they are vibrating with every memory that we know now isn’t exactly what we thought it was.

I’m not going to suggest you put it all on Facebook Marketplace and get rid of it. But maybe you could add something this year that could stand for the hopes and dreams of a new life. Maybe you could build on the things that remain true and make them stronger. We can’t keep unpacking the old ones and expect them to keep us going. We need some new ones.

Look for something like that to add this year, holding a place for new hopes and dreams even when they come with “dumpware”. Look for those hopes and dreams in unexpected places from unexpected sources. Let’s face it, the Christmas story is really a bit of dumpware story, too, isn’t it? Life just sometimes shakes out that way.

I wish you Merry Christmas. Joyeux Noel. Happy Holidays. Season’s Greetings. Hopes and Dreams. A Future Already in Its Way. I Wish You Dumpware, that in my spiritual tradition comes with with the Announcement of Your Life’s Worth Heard in a Poor Baby’s Cry in a Long Ago and Far Away Stable that you hear again…and for the first time.

With you,

Diane.