My Something Blue...

This post is a hard one for me to write...who am I kidding? It was hard just to talk to my mom about it...and I needed to pre-warn her that this post was coming.

**If you’re a sensitive cryer, this is your warning that this post may bring about the sudden urge to cry. Or tear up at least.**

I’ve been wracking my brain about my something blue. The something new is easy...and there are so many options. My dress. My shoes. Something borrowed was also easy...MOH has lent me her petticoat to wear as well as her own wedding day jewelry...and Maid Britney has given me her strapless bra. (Side note: B thinks that it’s totally odd for girls to share undergarments. He just doesn’t get that it’s not that big of a deal for us!) Something old...could also be any of my something borrowed items. Whatever doesn’t fit for one will work for the other.

But my something blue? That was proving to be a little difficult. I had thought to do something like blue undies...

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Or blue sparkles on my shoes, like these...

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I had even thought about putting a monogram on MOH’s petticoat in blue signifying BFF or something similar. I saw a post on weddingbee (that I can't find now!) and really loved the antique blue brooch that she used on her bouquet to incorporate her something blue. And although these ideas were all great and some of them really caught my eye, nothing just really jumped out at me, or seemed like something that I could do.

Until the other day when I lost a pair of earrings. I was going through my various little knick knack boxes that sit atop my dresser and nightstand, looking in all places high and low for the misplaced pair of earrings. I started opening them all, peering inside and shuffling the contents around trying to glimpse my earrings, when I opened the last box on my stand.

No, I didn’t find my earrings. I found my something blue.

You see, when I was a little girl we would go and visit my grandmother quite often. My cousins would all come over so that we could play together, and my older cousin Tammy was my idol for the longest time. She was just two years older than me, so old enough to look up to, but not too old to play with me. We were close – pen pals, playmates, confidants, you name it. One of our favorite games to play was...dress up. But not with clothes and such...with my grandmother’s costume jewelry. MeMa was old school and didn’t get her ears pierced, so she had boxes and boxes and drawer upon drawer of costume jewelry, especially clip on earrings. Tammy and I would paw through it all, piling as much on as we could manage to carry (that stuff was HEAVY!) on ourselves and then parade around, doing a fashion show. When we got a little bit older, we didn’t enjoy wearing it so much, but we would play store with it, dressing the front bedroom up as a boutique and then taking turns acting as shopkeeper and customer. We had a time, I tell you.

But over the years, costume jewelry breaks down, and gets tossed out. By the time that I had my daughter, MeMa was down to just a small box or two of jewelry left, and J never really got into it, as she was still young when MeMa lost her battle with cancer. As we closed up her house, going through her possessions, deciding who would have what, I simply told my Mom to use her best judgment in bringing me some small mementos out of MeMa’s house.

It took about six months after MeMa died, for my Mom and Uncle to settle the house affairs. When she was done, she had a load of furniture and knick knacks to bring to me in Austin. She and my step-father brought it all down one weekend, and in that load was this jewelry box. My Mom had gone through what was left of MeMa’s jewelry and she and my Aunt had split it between the great-granddaughters...hoping that we would understand the significance of the gesture. Believe me, it was not lost on me, and I took the box and placed it with other prized possessions and things of importance in my own room. (You see, at the time, I didn’t think that J was really old enough yet to play with it all. Not that she would stick it in her mouth, but just that she wasn’t ready for it yet.)

And now, three years later, it’s still on my dresser. It’s not that J isn’t old enough to play with it, or that she wouldn’t enjoy having it, but in all honesty, I just don’t want to part with it yet. I don’t look inside it often, or at least I can’t remember when the last time that I opened it up was, but on this one morning, I opened it looking for my lost earrings. This is what I saw...

The tears started, and ran down my face. I knew immediately that I had found my something blue, my mind flashing back to the post that I had read earlier that week. Having finished my bouquet, I quickly stuck the earrings on the top of the ribbon and there they will hide, nestled in close to my heart on my wedding day. It’s the best something blue that I could ever ask for. More than carrying a picture of MeMa or something else that reminds me of her, these were her earrings, and she wore them often. I can’t think of anything else that would mean more to me than these would. Especially given the history behind them and my own memories of seeing her face light up when Tammy and I would do our fashion shows...this is absolutely the best something blue that I could ask for.

And two days later, when I showed the bouquet to my Mom, she understood immediately where I had gotten the sparkles on my bouquet. She didn’t intentionally give me blue ones for this use (how could she have known three years earlier that I would need them?), but it sure felt like fate to us. We both shed some tears and great big hugs...and we know that MeMa will be there with us that day.

Ok, there. I’m done. No more crying. No more tears. It’s over. I promise.

What are you doing for your something blue? Or borrowed? Or old? Are you carrying a family “treasure” with you down the aisle to bring a loved one into the ceremony?