Tiny Magnets

          I feel like I need to put myself out on a clothesline to dry after today's lovely little talent show of events.  It was a glorious way to start the day as I woke up and couldn't find my left shoe.  Yes, just the left one.  I ran all over the house in my desperate search for my laced bound friend.  I looked and looked EVERYWHERE, till I finally went right back to where I started just to see it wide out in the open.  If shoes could laugh, mine would've lost his tongue cracking up so hard.

   I find it funny that the only time we need something so so badly is exactly when we can't find it.

    I've learned a lot in my days of having something absolutely wonderful and then all of the sudden, it is gone. There was this time I had there tiny little magnets from a Dairy Queen kid's meal, (I was 10, which I believed was still kid meal worthy) with these magnets you could line them up in a certain order on your fridge or other magnetic object and then you could take this small wheel and let it slide down and if you lined everything up right you could land it right in a bucket that came with the toy.  I love that!  I found so many ways to set up those magnets and land that wheel right where I wanted it to go.
 
   I was fascinated with my accuracy and started to get a bit cocky.  I began putting obstacles in the way and would force that wheel to hit other magnets that where on the fridge and then I would start moving the original magnets farther and farther away and the drop for that little wheel would hit harder every time.

   One day I found magnets sitting in the disturbed and wild order I had left them in but something was wrong. The tiny plastic basket was tilting sideways and had a crack in it.  I ran to it and looked inside to find a piece of terrible news... my wheel was gone.

I looked everywhere for it! on the counters, in the cracks between the fridge, in the sink, the drawers and even back into my room.  My fear spread with each new destination and the lack of my wheel.
"Disappeared", I kept repeating to myself because that is what it truly felt like.

   I had not been fair to my wheel, putting each and ever other magnet in front of it and making things more and more difficult on purpose to watch just how far I could get my wheel to fall.  Eventually, I got what I deserved.

Years went by and I learned a few things in life.

Like my toy, I had challenged the very world around me and tested my heights and pushed all the obstacles right in the way and my growing pains consisted of self inflicted defeat and destruction.  Like my toy, I lost many loved ones and good friends by finding myself at the end of a rope that I had cut myself.  Like my toy, I couldn't find what I wanted most.

Almost a decade later, while packing up for college, I went to an old box full of crafts and gidgets from my elementary years.  I was looking at all my old drawings and paper airplane creations while I moved from box to box. I picked one up and put it far in the crevice of my closet and as I did so it got caught on one of the nails for my self and it tumbled towards me.  All the objects crashed to my feet and I sighed, bent down and grabbed a handful, then immediately stopped...

I felt something in my hand and my gut shock described what I held before I even looked at it. .

 

A small wheel.

    Even as a man, my heart flew with joy as my long lost pal had finally showed itself.  I sat, and laughed at memories of my favorite little toy.

    I realized that the similarity between this plastic, round object and my life was so striking.  I had lost my good toy, as time passed I had let it be. Stopped looking.  Stopped worrying.  Stopped hunting.  That was when the time had come for me to gain what I had lost.

So, like my toy, I have began to take life a bit more seriously and instead of making obstacles on purpose, I try to push those tiny magnets away from my path to the basket.

   Never forget what you have - do all you can to hold on 

     Take it slow and watch your wheel go