Blown Wide Open... Floored by Nostalgia

Wow. I was just completely overcome with emotion as I leaned on my early 19th-century china cabinet, staring that the mid-19th century hall stand I just retrieved from the valley after not having seen it for 13 years.

It's only today that I realized how important my mother made me feel as a child when she made this piece of furniture reserved for MY hat collection. At the age of 12, I had everything from feather hats from the 1920s to naval hats from the '80s and everything in between, all piled on this stand, and hanging on nails all over the sunroom's walls around this stand. The best hats, however, went on this stand... and she even dusted them. :)

Standing here in the dim light of my casual living room, it strikes me just how beautiful and unique a piece this is, just standing there naked in the poor light. And to let some 12-year-old's poorly compiled weird little hat collection obscure it... what a way to tell a 12-year-old how special she is.

Man... she's been dead nine years, I haven't seen this for 13 years, haven't cared about it for 20, and now it has the ability to reduce me to tears after all these years. Wow. I didn't really get it back then, but I really did always feel valued. Now, though... this one piece of furniture somehow makes all that real again for the first time in a long time. A real, real long time. And my mind, it's blown. Blown wide open.

I don't think I can sell this piece after all. I'll get by without it. This one's different... I'll find the room to keep it. Sigh. For a while. Maybe forever. Definitely for now. For now, definitely.

It's her birthday in four days and I think she would be really, really happy to know I've decided to keep it. You know, I stood there with my hands wrapped around the scarves bar and for a moment, felt electrically charged. It's so weird, I can't explain it, but I just suddenly knew that, as much as I want more space in my home, to sell that... whew. It'd be something I would regret, and forever. Few things we own really represent something that helped shape who we are, and I know it was just a hat collection, but... it wasn't. :)