Every house has a drawer of things too good to use, and I have started to think of it as a small museum of fear.
My grandmother had a set of plates that were kept for best. In forty years I never saw them on a table. When she died we found them still wrapped, and I remember being moved and angry at about the same time.
What we are saving things for
The good scissors. The notebook too nice to write in. The soap that came as a gift, going slowly dull in its paper. We tell ourselves we are looking after them, but mostly we are waiting for a version of life grand enough to deserve them, and that life keeps failing to turn up.
I do not think the instinct is stupid. It comes from a time when things were hard to replace, and I respect that. But I know what happens to an unused candle, and it is not that it gets better.
Best is a day of the week you have to choose. It does not arrive by itself.
An experiment
- Find one thing you are saving.
- Use it on an ordinary Tuesday.
- Notice that nothing terrible happens.
I lit the candle. I cut wrapping paper with the good scissors. I now eat breakfast on what used to be the Christmas plates, and one of them has a chip in it, and I find that I like that plate better than the rest.
There is a difference between looking after a thing and hiding it. I am trying to stay on the right side of it.
Sample content for The Pixel, a fictional personal blog.
