Things and memories. What we keep.

But also: Can you eat candy off a motel room floor? 🤢

Spring Break 1977. Shady motel room somewhere between Indiana and the beach.

Don’t get excited. This is not my girls gone wild story.

I was seven.

And my family didn’t do “wild.”

We did, however, enjoy a road trip in the station wagon. And, at the end of the day, a roadside motel room with a bed hooked up to a coin-operated vibration device.

My mom wasn’t gonna spring 25 cents for a Milky Way at the supermarket, but she was willing to pop coins into a bed vibrator for us.

Maybe this IS girls gone wild?

Unclear. Unimportant.

This is the story of how I woke up in a motel one Easter morning and found a trail of candy.

Starting from the edge of my pillow, to the floor. Then up and over the bed where grandma and my sister slept, to the floor. Then around the rollaway bed where my grandpa slept, TO THE FLOOR. And then into the bathroom (ON THE FLOOR), ending at the bathtub where the Easter Bunny had left our Easter baskets filled with jelly beans and Peeps.

The part of this story that I love is that my mom somehow managed to create this whole extravaganza without me or my sister having a clue. Which could not have been easy.

It’s hard to hide massive amounts of candy in a fully packed station wagon.

The part of this story that is … disturbing … is that I actually remember eating the candy off the floor of the motel room.

Off the floor.

Of the motel room.

Pieces of chocolates, unwrapped.

Jelly beans, unwrapped.

Peeps for goodness sake. Unwrapped.

Why am I telling you this?

Because Sunday is Easter and this is the best Easter story I’ve got.

And because I want you to know this:

You don’t have to keep something if the only reason you’re keeping it is to preserve the memory of something.

In 1977, in a motel room with shag carpet and a bed that vibrated if you fed it a quarter, I gobbled jelly beans off the floor like an absolute feral child. And I didn’t keep a single thing from that motel room.

Which means that my memory of this event (and the family story that goes along with it) doesn’t live in any object inside my home.

The memory isn’t attached to any thing.

The memory IS the thing.

Sometimes we hang on to things we don’t need, want, use, or love—just because they’re tied to a memory. And we’re afraid that the memory will be lost if the object disappears. So we hold tightly to the thing because of the story behind it.

But that’s not how memories work.

Letting go doesn’t mean you forget. And it doesn’t mean you no longer value your history. And it doesn’t mean that you’re not grateful. Getting rid of something is not the same as getting rid of the love or the happiness.

The thing taking up space in your closet isn’t sacred.

The memory is.

The story is.

And your heart has plenty of space to hold those.

Hopefully (one of) your favorite Peeps,
Vivian