206 Marbles
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
Dalai Lama
Today as I was mindlessly flipping through a magazine, I saw a do-it-yourself project that I kept coming back to. It was a vintage wooden box that was used to make a decorative storage bench. The project looked easy enough for me to do, but why would I want to? Then it dawned on me – I could use the bottom of my broken hope chest for this project. All I have to do is get a piece of wood cut to the right size, do a bit of sanding, cut some foam and batting to fit the lid and cover it with fabric, securing it with a staple gun. This is easy enough for me to do.
First a bit of history…when Ex-man and I broke up, he was midway through the project of refinishing an old hope chest my father had originally refinished when I was young. Traditionally, a hope chest was used by unmarried young women to gather items that they would be using for their married life - linens, china, etc. I’m not an extreme traditionalist but I did marry young and I used the chest to carry items from my home with my parents into my home with my first husband.
Almost twenty years and a few relationships later, my hope chest lid split open and came off its hinges. The irony of the timing didn’t escape me – the breakdown of the hope chest coincided with the breakdown of my relationship with Ex-man and in those final days before he moved out, I had definitely felt a complete loss of hope.
For the past year, every day when I enter the garage I see the bottom portion of the chest that Ex-man stripped. I know that he will never complete the job but I’d like the memory of my father and the symbol of hope to be functional. I’ve considered hiring someone to complete the job but somehow having a stranger work on it doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve taken a good look at it to see if I could complete the job but it is definitely beyond my skill set without taking woodworking classes.
Thanks to the magazine, I now have a way to get the chest back into my home. For me, hope is not about pipe-dreaming - it is the buoyant fuel that helps me move into the future. It is not something that is outside of myself - it is the knowledge that I am potent creator and doer. What makes me most excited about this refurbishing project is I’m not relying on Ex-man or anyone else to bring hope - it has always been a do-it-yourself project.
Is your metaphorical hope chest functional? If not, what could you do to bring the buoyancy of hope into your life? Dale Carnegie wrote, “most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” What would it take to remove hopeless from our vocabulary?
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
Dalai Lama
Today as I was mindlessly flipping through a magazine, I saw a do-it-yourself project that I kept coming back to. It was a vintage wooden box that was used to make a decorative storage bench. The project looked easy enough for me to do, but why would I want to? Then it dawned on me – I could use the bottom of my broken hope chest for this project. All I have to do is get a piece of wood cut to the right size, do a bit of sanding, cut some foam and batting to fit the lid and cover it with fabric, securing it with a staple gun. This is easy enough for me to do.
First a bit of history…when Ex-man and I broke up, he was midway through the project of refinishing an old hope chest my father had originally refinished when I was young. Traditionally, a hope chest was used by unmarried young women to gather items that they would be using for their married life - linens, china, etc. I’m not an extreme traditionalist but I did marry young and I used the chest to carry items from my home with my parents into my home with my first husband.
Almost twenty years and a few relationships later, my hope chest lid split open and came off its hinges. The irony of the timing didn’t escape me – the breakdown of the hope chest coincided with the breakdown of my relationship with Ex-man and in those final days before he moved out, I had definitely felt a complete loss of hope.
For the past year, every day when I enter the garage I see the bottom portion of the chest that Ex-man stripped. I know that he will never complete the job but I’d like the memory of my father and the symbol of hope to be functional. I’ve considered hiring someone to complete the job but somehow having a stranger work on it doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve taken a good look at it to see if I could complete the job but it is definitely beyond my skill set without taking woodworking classes.
Thanks to the magazine, I now have a way to get the chest back into my home. For me, hope is not about pipe-dreaming - it is the buoyant fuel that helps me move into the future. It is not something that is outside of myself - it is the knowledge that I am potent creator and doer. What makes me most excited about this refurbishing project is I’m not relying on Ex-man or anyone else to bring hope - it has always been a do-it-yourself project.
Is your metaphorical hope chest functional? If not, what could you do to bring the buoyancy of hope into your life? Dale Carnegie wrote, “most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” What would it take to remove hopeless from our vocabulary?
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