It was yesterday morning while crossing the road on my way to my favourite cafe that I noticed the ‘bag tag’ I had made (a beaded dangley thingy that hangs off my bag) was now just one bead instead of three with a heart on the end. At some point during my morning errands the last two beads and the heart on the end had broken away from the first bead. But how? And when exactly? Just as the heart embellishment was gone, so too my own heart sank a little as I let out a sigh of disappointment followed by the words: “Doh! I really liked those beads!” I couldn’t remember where I got them from, but probably it was while on some road trip adventure for a weekend getaway.

Thinking back to the last time I noticed it whole, I remembered admiring it the day before. I traced back my steps just now, but the missing piece was nowhere to be found. I checked the front passenger seat of my car, the back seat, everywhere my bag had been sitting. The pockets of the bag itself, in case it had conveniently fallen into my bag. But no. That was not the case. I wondered if it was laying somewhere on the ground closer to home some 30 minutes away where I had been to the bank earlier in the morning. It wasn’t possible to go back there now. So I concluded there was nothing that could be done, and the way forward was to see this as an opportunity to create something new. For all that I had admired it, & enjoyed its colours, now was the time for something new.

But still . . . every time I returned to my car, I checked another space, just in case it had fallen there.

I repeatedly told myself “Let it go.” and“This is an opportunity for something new.”
But it’s hard when the choice was made for you. When something (or maybe someone) you loved is no longer with you. Even as I drove home later in the evening, I still considered stopping outside the bank to retrace my steps . . . but no . . . these are just 3 little beads . . . move on!

This morning while doing the vacuuming, as I came around the corner into my entryway, “There you are!” and there it was, that leap in my heart, as I saw those 2 beads with the heart on the end resting on the tile floor by the leg of the small table – where my bag had been sitting right before I rushed out the door yesterday morning.

On considering to ‘repair’ or ‘go new’ I decided to repair. Nothing was broken as such, only that one of the links between the beads had come apart a little. Just enough for them to fall apart from each other. I don’t know how, as the gap was so small, it would have to have been a combination of factors: pressure, pulling, and an upward angle, all at the same time.

So I guess the ‘take aways’ in all of this (for me at least) are these:
Learning to let go.
In letting go, seeing that as an opportunity for something new.
Enjoy what you have, while you have it.
The choice to repair or go new.

And that good old saying:
“If you want something very very badly, let it go free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, it wasn’t yours to begin with.“

In the case of those beads that broke away from my bag that I had been hoping to find them somewhere along my travels. I guess there’s a bit of irony in that while they didn’t ‘come back to me as such’, it was me that had to come home to find them.

As I started typing this this morning, I remembered where I bought those three little beads. It was several months ago, on a day trip to Ballarat for one specific purpose: to checkout a bead shop. It was there as my eyes scanned numerous little containers of beads, that those beads caught my eye. You know the feeling . . . when you see something, your heart gives a little leap and you instantly love it, and so you have to have it. That’s me with beads. So I chose three from their selection, one of each of the colours that appealed to me. I already had in mind their décor purpose for my handbag.

And on that note, one last reflection:
I guess that’s why ‘letting go’ is sometimes so hard.
Because you remember the ‘heart leap’ that happened in the finding.