Monday, December 21, 2009

A Tale of Two Tables

Ten years ago I moved to NC to start law school, I moved into my first apartment and filled it with hand me down furniture from various family members. My mom gave me two tables, the oak kitchen table that sat in our kitchen as I grew up, where we did crafts, ate family dinners, decorated cookies, where I did homework and my applications for college. It was scratched and scarred and I vowed I would replace it as soon as I had my first real lawyer job, I covered it with a table cloth and tried to hide what I perceived were the flaws. Ten years later I still have that table and I've made my own memories at that table. Dinner parties with friends, scrapbooking with my friends, arts and crafts with my nieces, it is now even more scratched and scarred and stained, but has no tablecloth. I have come to appreciate the scars, and the stains and I keep finding new uses for that table. The table is just like me I'm scarred, and stained and flawed, but my foundation is strong and I will always continue to find new ways to make my life important and make memories that will last a lifetime. I look at the tiny scars on my belly that are the only outward evidence of the journey I have been on and they help me remember how far I've come.

The second table was one made by my grandfather, a simple wooden table with three legs and stains on top. Another table I couldn't wait to get rid of, I tried to sell it twice and give it away once. I tried to leave it behind when I moved but somehow this table just kept coming along and every time I would be ready to take it to the dump and get rid of it I would find another way to make it useful, just today I found just another use for the table I was finally going to get rid of. Learn to appreciate the things in our life that aren't always perfect and that don't seem to always fit, because they can become useful in the most surprising ways.

Sometimes at table is not just a table.

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