All bottled up inside

Today I was sitting outside having lunch on our (deep sarcasm) amazing back “porch”and I looked down at the side of the porch, and noticed what looked to be a bottle cap inside the cinder block. I grabbed the end of it and pulled, and out came this bottle, perfectly in tact. Pretty amazing since that (more deep sarcasm) incredible structure of a porch has been there for almost 70 years and this bottle has survived that long unscathed.

Of course it is quite dirty and is showing signs of its age, but it was still doing its job—keeping something inside. Then I got to thinking—that sounds a lot like me at times. I occasionally get quite dirty and for sure am showing signs of aging. Sadly, I sometimes find myself keeping some rather nasty stuff on the inside too—like anger, bitterness, envy, and other sediments— all bottled up, when I could just as easy open up and let them go. If only it were as easy as unscrewing a cap to let it all out.

Maybe I’ll hang onto this bottle for a while, as a souvenir of yet another found object hidden inside our home. Five years ago when we started remodeling our 2nd floor into a master suite, we discovered a small and very old sewing machine. Maybe I should hang onto this as a visual reminder of the junk I keep bottled up inside of me that needs to get out, and think of that every time I see it.

Regardless of its fate, at least I have my little life lesson from today—when I discover or uncover the nasty things inside of me, I gotta let it go. Just because I can keep it all bottled up inside, doesn’t mean I should.