Recycle

(Picture by Terrence Raper)

Favorite things of this very moment (11:57 am CST):

• Jingle Bell Java coffee with some eggnog
• Being handed a Snapple Raspberry Ice Tea (which is probably my favorite) by my younger brothers after they'd borrowed my car
• Having heard from Nikky this morning
• Good music shuffling through my iTunes
• Having a good conversation with Jordan echoing through my head and helping to clear the last of the shadows of the ache I was feeling last night slowly dissipate
• Christmas lights (they truly never get old)
• Sunshine
• The promise of some girl time with Heather later this evening

I was trying to come up with an appropriate response to a post Jordan had written earlier today, and I was reminded of something about myself. I am a recycler and a rescuer. I am a collector of the lost and a restorer of the forgotten.

Nikky can attest to my bizarre reuse of paper. I tend to write her letters on whatever I have at hand at the moment: napkins, scratch paper, old memos, Beef-A-Roo tray inserts, Alfanos place mats, and even Cheese Nips boxes. I believe everything has a use. I tend to use scraps of cloth to create new things. I am currently creating a creature that Nikky will eventually probably get to own (she often gets stuck with my more bizarre creations). It's made from old scraps of fleece that my mom used to make blankets. I once made an afghan for a friend that was made almost entirely of yarn my grandmother had given me. A huge blanket made of castaway colors. It is one of the strangest looking blankets in history, but he loves it.

I feel people should be looked at in the same way was the blankets I've made or the creature I'm creating: each piece of them tells a story, and they're always made from love. I don't create things because I hate them, I retrieve the bits and find ways to use them for something better. People are the same. There will never come a day when I find a person who is without a little sparkle and magic of their own. There is always something worth restoring. Something worth protecting and preserving. Something worth pursuing and nurturing.

We are all lost, but we are also all worth being recovered and restored. We are priceless like jewels. Each of us starts off as something rough and uncut, but we can be turned into something much more beautiful. Something more.

We are diamonds in the rough.