He didn't mean to do it. Mark was groggy tonight, off balance from all the medications he was given at his most recent trip to the ER, when he slammed into my house of miniature figurines and sent them crashing to the floor. It shouldn't matter to me. They're just pieces of glass after all. But they are also so much more.
I don't have much of beauty that is mine. I delight in my burgundy and lace curtains and in my books. Other than that, much of what I have falls heavily under the category of "functional." These figurines are the exception. I started the collection when I was a teenager and have added to it slowly over the years. My favorite piece, however, is one of my earliest one: a blue and white dutch boy and girl. I love it partly because it is so beautiful in its simplicity and partly because my parents bought it for me on a trip to the Netherlands. Gifts from my parents were scarce: birthdays and Christmas. That's it. There's wasn't money for frivolousness. But this was a "just because" gift, and I've cherished it all these years. And now it's broken.
It doesn't matter really. Once I glue it, I'm sure it will be nearly as good as new. But my initial reaction wasn't logical or adultlike. I didn't do what I should have done and told Mark not to worry about it, that it was just a bunch of glass. No, I got to my knees among my trinkets and cried, "Oh! You broke them!" In a flash of sudden anger, I was unable to heed my own advice not to sweat the small stuff. Truly, it's the small stuff that can make one come undone.
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