I was looking for a certain fave toy of baby boy’s this morning, and I just couldn’t find it anywhere. I decided to stop searching for that one, and grab another one on our way out the door, when lo and behold, I saw his fave toy was peeking out from underneath another toy.
I thought of how often this happens: we’re searching for something, and cannot for the life of us find it. Then when we seemingly give up, that’s when the thing appears.
It’s like we need to let go, for it to find us.
That kinda happened to me in a bigger way, also today, but with like 9 months between letting go. 🤣
I’d been super confused you see… I guess pregnancy followed by long-term sleep deprivation does that to you. For my cousin’s wedding last year, I had been desperate to give her a borrowed item, as per a little female-made family tradition that had created itself.
See, I believed (just go with me here) that my sister had given me a little wedding pouch/bag for my wedding day ‘new,’ and I had then given my cousin’s older sister for her wedding day, that same pouch to be her ‘borrow’ – of course being a gift from my sister I wanted to keep it, hence the borrow intention.
I then wanted to find that same bag, and give it to my cousin (the younger sister) for her wedding last year… and for the life of me I couldn’t find it. I so desperately LOVED the idea of a bag linking our two families, two sets of sisters, across such beautiful celebrations, across decades! But no matter how hard I searched, I came up with nothing.
And this was during the newborn phase! I had limited time to do anything, and here I was going through cupboards and boxes and drawers and looking in corners I hadn’t touched in years. I realised I hadn’t seen the ‘bag’ the entire time we had lived in this house, which made me turn things over even more, because surely it was in a spot I had missed.
I don’t lose things. Which is why giving up was so difficult, especially for such a sentimental occasion. I bought a wedding charm for my cousin’s wedding day and gave it to her, but I was very disappointed that I had misplaced the bag.
Today I used an inner zip of my baby bag – a bag I’ve started using again since baby boy was born, as I used it daily when baby girl was a baby and toddler. I had to put something valuable away while out (out with that toy I had found this morning) and noticed this zip that I realised I hadn’t noticed at all since using the bag again.
Anyway, I stashed my stuff away, and then at home opened this zip to retrieve it.
That’s when history and my memory re-jigged itself entirely.
It wasn’t a wedding pouch that was lost.
It was a blue rosary. 💙📿
Alongside my valuable, there were receipts, some old vouchers, some feminine items (lol) and then, the blue rosary. And like gentle waves lapping against the ocean’s shore, each meeting of surf to sand has been nudging my memory in the correct direction all day as the truth came slowly back.
There had never been a wedding bag to find, although in truth there was one. My sister had given me a pouch to ‘borrow,’ because it had been her bag on her wedding day, and since there were 15 years between our weddings, it had been an ‘old’ too.
And within that pouch had been the rosary – both ‘new’ and ‘blue,’ mine to keep. And the truth was that this rosary had been in my borrowed pouch on my wedding day, and I’d given it to my cousin years before on her wedding day, to borrow.
The reason why I never found a wedding pouch, was because there never was one to find! It’s my sister’s after all. I had meant to look for the rosary, but memory had failed me.
I’ve been shaking my head at myself all day. I even wore the rosary in the late morning for a while, and I’m surprised baby boy didn’t grab for it as it dangled from around my neck.
My new spot for it? Where it always used to live, something I totally forgot about, but that is so clear to me now.
My every day bag. Even before I had a baby bag, the rosary lived in the bag I took with me on our honeymoon as a layer of protection… then it stayed there, and moved from bag to bag throughout the years.
I’m going to think about the timing of this find, and the significance as I search for answers in other parts of my life now… maybe when I let go, the answer will find me. 🙏❤
carcrashgratitude 