Thoughts from the back of a Antique Shop

I lived my life like I sifted through a store of antiques.  As I would enter the shop, with the door bell still jingling, I would inhale the aroma of mold and of mildew and of times gone by, and I would allow them to dance in my nose for a time. I carefully passed by all of the things that I never cared about on my way to what I wanted the most, interests of others never swaying me to pursue anything other than my own desires. With youthful exuberance, I would dash for the old records, and the old military leftovers, as if war and music were all I cared to know about from the generations before. I passed the books with all their torn and worn pages that were once a young boy's favorite book, or a young girls favorite bedtime story. I passed them as they rotted on those old wooden bookshelves that leaned ever so slightly, and those shelves that one breeze through the store would certainly knock over. I went past the furniture that once made one's house a home. Furniture that kids would not see as a couch, or a chair, but a cockpit of a plane, or a horse from the wild west; dressers where the owner's favorite shirt used to be. I went by the trinkets that a child's mom would often have placed on the wrong shelf. As her two boys wrestled on the floor, a soft thud would resound on the carpet, and despite their best efforts to hide it, mother would always find out what happened. The lamps that lit the rooms, the pictures that adorned the walls, and the fans that made the summer days a bit more tolerable. This is what I walked past, this is what my youth ignored. As I age, I see all the things I, and my generation, have neglected. All the small things I passed in my life because I thought life had more to offer. Some new and better thing which would complete my existence. The truth is there is no one life changing thing. It is the small things in life that will change who you are, the small things that will make you better. It is that small piece of junk in the back corner of a musty old antique shop that will open your heart to see the beauty of life. Not because that little piece of junk is beautiful, or because it will provide you some service that will make your life easier. It is beautiful only because some human creature was odd enough to make such a thing. Only after you chuckle and set the item down, do you see. It is not the large, or the strong, or the proud, or the bold. No, it is not them. It is the small, the weak, the humble and the meek; they will offer you life, they will let you see.