"My Life is a Flea Market."

"So many roads. So many detours. So many choices. So many mistakes." 

 - Sarah Jessica Parker

     The husband and I decided to go a well-known outdoor flea market this weekend.  We try to go a couple of times each year because not only do we collect "stuff" (that never gets used) but we love to be outside, poking around the booths hoping to find that magical treasure that will transcend our home.  There's a magic in holding hands, finding joy in the insignificant and not so insignificant booths of socks, antiques, furniture, toys missing their paint, old record albums, tapes and foods. So many unwanted items waiting for a second chance or a revival. As we walked around on that relatively chilly fall afternoon, I thought about how much my life represented a giant flea market.

    For many reasons, I have been feeling defeated by a number of incidents lately. Flea markets make me conscious of how much time has passed as the husband and I saw so many reminders of our youth.  When we're young, we had the  energy and the time to venture from booth to booth and everything looked so appealing.  We wanted it all.  We felt so free to wander.  The young can preoccupied with a multitude of things and never tire of searching.  My attention was drawn to anything and everything.  I was free to pick up, touch, smell, talk.  There was no timetable.  Wandering meant freedom.  My attention was free to go anywhere I wanted it to go. 

     My life has been a flea market.  My thoughts, my behavior have taken so many detours to observe, try, accept and reject the tangible and the intangible.  Memories are alive and well at the flea market.  Some of those memories I long to sell and unload to someone more equipped to handle them. Others I will never let go of because I love the clutter.  I hold on to them because they comfort me.  I am also reminded of how much I have changed.  I have unloaded an endless number to intangibles that have indeed held me back only to be replaced by more advanced truths.  The most significant truth being that nothing lasts forever unless we maintain it and cherish it the way those precious mementos and memories are meant to be.  

     My life has been a flea market.  I may not spend as much time, energy or money as I once did, but taking that much needed trip back in time, I am no longer torn in so many directions causing me to feel lost and sometimes alone. I realized that some things will never change and some things most definitely do...all for the right reasons.  We can go back in time at a flea market but it will cost you.