Blog 19

Essay number four:


“Why do we have to go to another store today? We have gone into about ten already and the only thing that anyone has found are shells and candles, I am hungry” This was a typical statement from my brother whenever the girls had a shopping day on vacation, and I never quite understood why he still came along every time we went. Usually shopping days occurred after at least half of the family had got sun burnt and needed a day away from the sun. I was usually the starter of this, for I somehow always forgot to re-apply around the second day and had to spend time lying on a couch in severe pain. Yet this was how it went, long drive, food, play, burn then shop. Besides fishing shopping was one of my favorite things to do when we were all together. I found it amusing when the men would get angry, and when my step mom would get all worked up and frantic when one of us went missing, even though we were just on the other side of the store. This was my family, crazy lunatics all coming together to look at little nick-knacks that were thrown about the store attempting to find the best deal. At this point in the day it was getting to be about one so everyone was getting hungry and the boys were done, done, done and for them it was time for beach and beer. Now although I was leading towards their thinking I spotted something out of the corner of my eye that brought be back. There it was shoved behind a coffee mug that had some silly statement on it; it had twelve sides, four letters, and an engraving that probably took a mere twenty minutes to carve. It was a little larger than the size of my palm and shared my pale complexion, although I had a red tint due to the burn. It was simple and elegant; there was just something about it that spoke to me, so I bought it. It was 3.95, cost less than the McDonald’s breakfast that I had earlier that day. I showed it to my younger sister and she said it was pretty, my step mom also had the same reaction, but I knew to them it was just another object that could be collected from our vacations. To me though it was special, I knew it would serve more of a purpose then just a memory of shopping with the family that year.

The remainder of vacation went like this. I slowly began to heal so I managed to venture out into the sun again, but with heavy duty protection, and always had a t-shirt on hand. My siblings and I all just hung out, laughed, ate A LOT, watched movies, drank, and tried to put out of our minds the ending of this vacation and returning to work. No one ever wants to leave, not just because we aren’t working, but because there are seven of us in our family so to get us all together in one place takes a lot of effort, but means the world when it happens. Our last day arrived, we packed, doubled checked the house and headed back to reality. We all had something to bring home with us, shells, pictures, some scars from falling while intoxicated, and in the bottom of my purse wrapped in tissue paper was my souvenir.

As we rode home and I got tired of listening to music and playing games with the family, I rolled over and un-wrapped the gift I bought myself. Now in my possession it still held so much beauty I was not able to look at it and not smile. I felt calm holding it, this was a help specially the way my father happened to be driving at the moment, and it seemed to have a power that only I could feel. I could hold it in one hand, but chose to use two because I could not imagine dropping it, I held it close to me for awhile just thinking about the trip and feel asleep with it in my arms.

After a total of around eleven hours we finally returned home, I packed up the remainder of my things and got into my car to travel back to Jersey. I took a lot away from the trip but most importantly I had my special souvenir. I threw I pack into my purse to make my journey home and took it out once I was all settled in. I took a moment just sitting there on my bed looking at it, studying the detail, even though as I mentioned it probably did not take too long, and I envied who ever did the engravings. Then I took my pointer finger and traced the four letters that were written down the front. First two parallel lines with a small horizontal line in the middle, then a perfect oval with no mistakes, next a straight line with a moon half full attached to it, and the last one I traced went left, down, right, left, down, right. Four letters that were the main reason why I looked at this knick knack, they spelled out the word H O P E. A word that is very important in my life. For I have taught myself that no matter what has gone wrong in my life that the only thing that I can do is to never give up hope. Sitting there on my bed, sad to be home, this word and this artifact left me with a feeling of security. All that was left to do was the find a place to put it. All around my room there were items of sentimental value that I was sure to save, but most of the time I just threw around my room without care. I could not do that with this item, I needed it to be in a place that could always be seen, a place that was close to me, and a place that my cats could not get to. I peered around for a while and decided that my night stand would be the best place, so every night before I went to bed I would be able to look over at it.

For what felt like the 100th time I was sick again. I couldn’t breathe, my fever was spiking, and my whole body was in pain. It was a part of my yearly routine being sick all the time, but this year it was just too much. No one seemed to care anymore, because it happened so often, I was like the girl who cried sick. I felt like I had nothing and nothing could get better, until I rolled over and saw it. I had changed its surroundings a bit now there was a candle and a plastic flower that went around the base of the. Those four little letters again were there, and I started to feel better. Of course my insides were not magically getting better, but my spirit was lifting at I was at least able to sleep. From this point I am stumped! I do not know if because I have been out of it lately so I have writers block but I cannot figure out where to go from here. As always I have trouble with my focus, I know that it has to deal with , what in people lives keeps them going when things are bad. Other than that I am lost. HELP!