One night last week, I was making dinner and realized that the appliance I was using had been in my life since December 2000. It’s almost 25 years old! I remarked on this to my husband, and we started to try to think of all of the things we own that predate our relationship, which began in June 2002. 

The fridge! He bought that a few years prior to meeting me, and we moved it with us when we bought our house.

My sewing table! It was my mom’s, and I’m pretty sure it predates my birth. 

He has a piggy (actually a deer) bank he got as a child; I have a jewelry box I got as a child; I have a sweatshirt I acquired from the university PE department when I was in my undergrad; he still has his truck he bought a few months before he met me. 

We still have several things we received as wedding gifts in 2005 ~ the KitchenAid mixer, a fruit bowl. We definitely have dishes that date to around that time, although neither of us remembers buying them. Maybe he had them before we met?

In this disheartening age of new-is-better, unboxing videos, and shopping hauls, I would most definitely rather contemplate these long relationships with possessions rather than the (estimated) six microwaves we have gone through due to breakage … the five toasters, the seven vacuum cleaners, the three washer-dryer sets, and so on.  

In this time of fast fashion and everyone talking about wanting and buying shiny new things all of the time, this time of things breaking shortly after buying them, it satisfies me so deeply to think of the things that last. That have held up, stayed useful, and proved worthy for all of these years.

I have been pondering the same in my reading life lately as well, as evidenced by some of my recent reads.