treasure chest

My mom and I moved out of my grandma and Papa's house when I was 8.
Shortly after I turned 11, we moved to a new city.

Whenever we went back to visit my grandparents, I would steal something.

A pen. A rubberband. A duck coaster.

A tiny piece of the place I couldn't be.

I would take these things home with me in my pocket and when I was alone in my room I would take them out and hold them and cry.


Today Clark found a funny harvest-themed tin in my things. He brought it to me and called it his treasure chest. Inside was wallpaper. Old wallpaper. I took it out and unfolded it. I smiled when I saw it because I knew just what it was.

I was probably six when Papa started stripping the wallpaper in the dining room. I was so distressed that I kept some of it and I made my mom buy me a tin where I could keep it. I folded the old wallpaper up all teary-eyed like and placed it inside, to keep. You know, FOREVER. I guess I was a sentimental child.

When I held that wallpaper this afternoon I felt like I had been keeping it in my pocket for twenty years.

A tiny piece of a place I cannot be.

And it isn't three hours away, it is decades gone and only a handful of people even have the memory that it existed.

I have the memory. And I have the wallpaper.


  1. I was a sentimental one also... I have little boxes still filled with remnants of childhood.
    Hang on to them.
    This was a lovely read...

  2. Ohhh...I was a sentimental little girl as well. When I was about 13 we moved and some of the boxes containing my "treasures"--mementos I'd been saving since I could remember--were lost. That is still painful to me, especially since my mom's gone now and some of the memories were ones only she and I shared. I'm so glad you got that little piece of your past back.

  3. That was a very nice read :) I was, and am, still very sentimental too :) I remember when we moved from our house on "F" Street (where I lived when I went to Handley) and I went back to visit an old neighbor friend and we walked around the block by my old house, I "stole" a few rocks from the landscaping. It made me feel good to have a piece of my old home, even if it was something as silly as a rock. Not sure whatever happened to the rocks, but at the time, it was comforting :)

  4. There are little things, like your wall paper, I cannot bear to part with. They are tucked away in my dresser drawer. I don't look at them often; I just want to know that they are there. That my childhood, because specifics slip my mind, is safely nestled in my bedroom whenever I want to recall it. I understand.
    I want to be there sometimes, too. I don't know if I was ready to leave either.

    Beautiful sentiments.

  5. This was lovely. And sad. I was much more sentimental the older I got, strangely.

  6. I love this story, and even more so, how you tell it.


  7. I understand this in ways which run so deep, they can't be explained any better than how you just explained them.

  8. You've got me all teary eyed. I was quite the sentimental little girl too. Sigh. It's so bittersweet to find the quirky things that meant so much and often still do.

  9. This was so beautiful. I'm amazed at your thoughtfulness as a little girl. How sweet and sentimental to hang onto those pieces of your family's past. So heartwarming, thank you.

  10. Ohhhh you! You, you... you beautiful, incredible person you!


  11. awww. That's ridiculously sweet. I'm not really sentimental when it comes to things. I think it comes from living with a mom who was a total hoarder. I feel the need to rid myself of everything that's not absolutely necessary. Hence me cleaning out the kids toys & clothes constantly

  12. What a lovely post. I am right there with you.
    You write so well. I love reading about your memories, they make me think of my own grandparents and the little things I used to take home and treasure.
    Thanks for bringing a smile to my face and a tear to my eye.

  13. so beautiful. I could cry thinking of all the treasures I loved in my grandparents' old home. I spent so much time there as a little girl, and I miss my grandpa so much.

    you have a new reader in me! :)