Sitting in my junk drawer is an old flashlight that no longer works. The batteries might be dead, or it might need a new light bulb, I don’t know. All I know is that it doesn’t work. I know this because I’ve tried to turn it on, several times. And every time I try, it doesn’t work. So I toss it back in the junk drawer. I’m sure I’m not the only person that does this, either. We all have our junk drawers. That place where we keep the bits and pieces of our lives that just don’t quite work anymore, that are just waiting until we can get around to fixing them. We can’t admit defeat and throw them away, it would be like giving up on ourselves. Because we have to believe that what is broken can be fixed. We have to believe that somewhere out there, someone is watching over us. That surely, someone loves us enough to change our batteries. And that we, broken as we are, will not be abandoned and thrown out with the trash.

So I guess that’s why I continue to pick up that old flashlight, flick the switch, and toss it back in the drawer, knowing that someday I will get around to changing those batteries. That old flashlight patiently waits in that dark drawer, along with a pair of scissors that won’t cut, and a roll of mailing tape that is stuck to itself. The wounded soldiers of the junk drawer, abandoned to a life of no purpose, used and broken souls, waiting to be made whole again.

I believe that as long as I open that drawer every once in a while, and let in a little light, those old soldiers will have hope that someday, somehow, they will get out. That they will be repaired, and that someday they will lead a life of purpose.

Copyright © 2004 Anna Clay