Vintage China

For some reason I began to be drawn to old china. I didn't know why, I just was. I already owned a beautiful set that I loved that I had picked out in my former life, and it only found its way out of the cabinets once or twice a year for holidays. Yet here I was admiring vintage china and their delicate patterns. I found myself falling in love with a pattern from Noritake, "Savannah". I researched and finally found a seller nearby who was selling the complete set plus a few extra pieces. I jumped on it. And it came to me that my hope was that this would be a set we used regularly. 

When I met with the seller, she told me that it was approximately 50 years old (from the 70s), and that to her knowledge, it had never been used. Wow. In a way that broke my heart, but also made me happy. We would use it, on a plain day, with a regular meal. And we did. I washed them all and we had our very ordinary (yet extraordinary) dinner the very next night on this vintage set that had never been used. 

If you had told me a year ago that I would have harmony in that former relationship, I would not have believed you. Part of that was because I still had hurt, and part of that was the difficulty in relating. I had learned how to respond and definitely that changed the outcomes, but there was still the lack of trust and anger.

Until I noticed that one day, there just wasn't. 

I had begun to think about old relationships with people I no longer had. Friendships that had ended based on abusive behaviors, or that were toxic that needed to no longer exist. And I began to truly wish those people well. My walls against them were gone. I didn't desire a close relationship with them any longer like I once had, but I wasn't walled off against them any longer. Or quite honestly, afraid. They couldn't hurt me even if I were next to them, and compassion filled my heart. 

I began to notice the same with this one. I no longer felt the pain, no longer was angry. And it wasn't about anyone else but me. I had it for me. And it surprised me. 

I greeted him with a smile. My conversation (though brief) was cheerful. I had my guards and always will, but I had no pain or resentment. I offered him to sit with me a school concert, and he accepted. I did that for the girls to see (when they looked into the audience), and I did it because I wanted to. It was a display of peace and it brought me immense joy. I told my dad, "I feel like I have truly forgiven." And I have. Finally, so many years later, I'm not angry or resentful anymore. 

And calm has finally come. 

I cannot take credit for this. Time. My own growth. My trust in the One who carried me from the beginning. And also, his growth.

And here I am talking about old china. This china is a different set than the one we had picked out prior to marriage. This is a simple set, with delicate lines. It is not overly glamorous or showy. Yet it had never been used. 

I feel like that is what we eat from now. A simple set. It is not the plain bowls and plates that we don't care if they get broken. I DO care and do not want this set to be broken. Like the vintage plates and cups, I handle the relationship with care and eat from it because for myself, for my girls, and for him, it deserves to be that way. It is a set of peace, of harmony, and of forgiveness. This is the relationship I choose to eat from now. 

The wind runs through the trees this morning as I sit on the front porch of our log cabin. My Love said we didn't have the sound of the waves of the beach, but we do have the sound of the wind through the trees. He is right. I don't feel that I have done anything, really. It just came, just like the wind through the trees. 

Vintage china. Someone years ago bought it because they loved it. It was beautiful to them, and they wanted to keep it perfect, hidden away in the cupboard. There didn't ever seem to be an occasion so special where they felt they could use it. And then there was that great fear that they would damage something so valuable. 

To be fair, I, too am afraid it will be damaged. But, I want to use it. We will all leave this life one day, and how sad it would be to not have eaten from such a beautiful set? When we eat from a set of forgiveness and love, we share memories and an experience that will permeate the veil of this life and live forever. And for my legacy, for the sake of my girls' memories, and for my own heart and life, I sit with the fragile china in front of me, china that found me (like forgiveness found me.) 

And so, my family gathers around the table and we laugh, we talk, and we eat. 

And never did a set of china feel so loved. ❤️