We recently decommissioned our clothes dryer that was purchased by my grandmother in the early 1980’s. Our entire marriage, my wife has dropped hints (begged, pleaded) that it was time for a newer model but I simply ignored her. If there was a clear case of perseverance and dedication, this dryer was it. I wasn’t giving up on it since it hadn’t given up on me.
As I was dismantling it to bring it up from the basement, two perfectly spherical, inch-round lint balls dropped from within the drum tumblers. Besides amazement at their perfect shape, I was struck that over 35 years of laundry history was contained within the tightly formed balls.
Traces of the lives of my grandmother, her second husband, other family members, various roommates, my wife, and my child were within those spheres. That machine has been hauled with me to Hillsborough, Durham, and Winston-Salem, NC and Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. That dryer has been in my life through several career changes, graduate school (twice), marriage, divorce, marriage again, and fatherhood.
The fibers in those small, round balls weave the tail of my adult life.
I am not one for nostalgia. Life happens and you move on. That is one of the reasons why I decided on a blog that focuses on purpose and meaning in life. From my feet forward is where I prefer to live life.
Holding these lint balls in my hand, I realize that purpose in life is just as much about what’s behind as it is what’s ahead. I firmly believe that where I am at any given moment is necessarily tied to all of where I have been. Change one thing and I am in a very different reality.
Occasionally my thoughts do wander backward to whether I could/should/would have done something different, better, or more rewarding. That’s my cue to look around me. Though everything is never fully the way I want them to be, I think of my wife, my son, and some of the people I have encountered. Those elements of the present reveal that the past has been purposeful and is filled with meaning.
I put those lint balls in my desk drawer. I just couldn’t throw them away.
Maybe every once in a while when I am in coulda-woulda-shoulda mode, I will put them in hand and examine the fibers for all the been theres, done thats, and happenings that led to where I am.