My Popcorn Popper

I was thinking the other day on having "Things".... Do "Things" make you happy or not. I grew up very poor and I had what I needed. I had a few extras but not much. One "Thing" I wanted growing up was a new bike seat. I only had my brothers old bike and the seat was always ripped up and it looked awful but the bike got me were I needed to go. I went to the store nearly everyday and looked at bike seats. I never bought one but I enjoyed looking at it and dreaming that someday I could make my brothers old bike look new. I always had friends and they loved me even though my bike looked bad and that they had new ones. So, I came to the conclusion that things did not make me happy and I put very little value to "Things."I believe that you don't love anything unless it can love you back. I never really had an emotional attachment to any "Thing" until I started decluttering. Almost everything I have given away has very little meaning to me. I don't feel sentimental about it or anything. I could tell people stories about it and there is very little emotion to it except for one thing and that is my popcorn popper. I think I truly love my popcorn popper. My dad has always loved popcorn and always loved my popcorn popper because it made such good popcorn. He would always tease me about giving him the popcorn popper. When I told my parents that I was decluttering and getting rid of everything my dad said I will take the popcorn popper. I had a good laugh and said "yea yea whatever." Then Timo came up with the idea that we buy a new one and give my dad our old one. At that moment I realized I had an attachment to that popcorn popper because I made Timo promise that he would buy another one and we had to search for them on the internet before I would even consider giving it away. Now that is saying a lot because I love my dad and making him happy is very important to me and he is the only person I would even consider giving my pop corn popper to. So, we gave it to him for his 83rd birthday. I took it over to his house and I had a hard time saying good bye. It felt like I was leaving one of my kids forever. (well, maybe not that bad) So, I thought to myself is it ok to love a "Thing" or do I really love the popcorn popper or just the amazing memories that is associated with the popcorn popper. We bought it in 1996 right after Emili was born. It has seen many movies with us including our Star Wars marathon and every Harry Potter movie that has come out. It also has been there for many Utah Jazz play off games. Countless of T.V. shows, Christmas movies. It has been invited to many ward parties. Especially this summer when it served hundreds of bags of popcorn to my many neighbors at two parties. Its been to Timo's work parties and many parties for my kids. It is the funniest thing we have ever bought and it has been through some very fun times and I think I truly love my popcorn popper.

That is why I am very grateful that I gave it to my dad because now he is using it and not only does it make him happy but he always has popcorn ready for anyone who comes and visits him. He likes making people happy with it also.