Found Treasures… {with a twist}

Do you ever happen upon treasures that you have not seen for ages?  Perhaps lost, misplaced, or simply forgotten amongst busy days?

 

Have you ever run across a letter, a document, something about your family, that you had no recollection of?  Have you seen your birth certificate in person?  Do you know where it is?

I have taken to hiding things so well, that sometimes I plum can't find them.

I love finding things lost in handbag lining, a la Carrie Bradshaw.

I also have hopes of finding things that simply disappear for years. (2 items to date)

But mostly, I know where everything I own is, no matter how messy my room might get. (ask my sister, she knows – she also wrote a funny story about that here in this blog somewhere (2 years ago maybe?), but I can't find it)

I love attics and hidden nooks, places where such things live and thrive, and wait to be found…

I have this black velvet box, that was given to me by my Mom years ago, on my 25th birthday.

It is one of my most beloved treasures, filled (by my Mom) with other important treasures, for me to safely keep.

The first time I opened the box I was giddy with anticipation.

I popped the latches open and found a silver contraption inside…

It was beautiful and curious, and so my Mom.

But also, it was so me.

I was intrigued.

I pulled the mysterious thingamabob out of its case, and slowly pulled it open…

Old papers emerged, while little jewels and medallions clinked around the bottom…

In this curious holder were all the important life papers having to do with me, as well as a handful of other super secret delightments…

I think that was the first time I ever saw my birth certificate, and in one fell swoop it became certain that I wasn't adopted (I had been secretly certain I was, I don't know why I thought that? silly kid).  Also, my aging face looks more and more like my father's everyday, so that is proof to me, more than a birth certificate, that I am my father's daughter 🙂

I'll tell you another random tale…

On my last birthday, a ring that I had not even thought of, probably since the day it went missing from my childhood jewelry box, found its way back to me…

Hello E.T.

😉

It came with a confession note attached to it from my sis.

She had stolen it like, 24 years ago or something.

Isn't that nuts? 

It made me remember my canopy bed, and my balloon wallpaper, and my pink carpet, and and, my posters of Cyndi Lauper and the Lost Boys and Duran Duran on my walls…  Oh oh, and Corey Hart too (Corey Haim and Corey Feldman being a given).

But it also made me think of the girl who used to wonder about the future, and hope it was going to be really really good and wonderful and fun and…..it is.

It is totally different from what I thought it would be (not that I know what I thought it would be), but as I have said before – nothing is as I expected, but everything is perfect.  Perfect in its imperfect way.

But then again, what is perfect?

Perception?

A Manifestation of our own imagination?

I dunno.

Either way, getting philosophical aside, I got my ring back 😉

E. T. phone home…

But wait…

In another twist of attic cleaning fate…

My Momsie came up with my old toe shoes from ballet. 

I love that she found them.

I thought they might fit, but I am a 7/7.5 now and they are 4.5, darn.

However, let me come clean here.

I hated ballet lessons.

Looooved ballet, but lessons, not so much.

I also hated piano lessons (for the whole time I lived at home), but I loved it when I figured out I could invent my own songs.  And, the piano is a huge part of my daily life to date.  So, I am grateful to them in the end.

Wait though, for all the kids out there who hate piano and ballet etc., you will thank your parents dearly if you let them force you to take ballet and go to piano lessons.  Trust me, you will.

The problem with me was that, I was head strong, and finally in my teens I successfully convinced my parents that I would change the entire dance routine and shame them to no end if they forced me on the recital stage.

So, they believed me.

I probably would have.

Which is why they believed me.

I won.

And then conned my Dad (at 15) into a brand new VW convertible, which my Mom says was the biggest mistake known to man.  As it made me think I was all grown up and free of parent's rules.

But that is another story, for another day.

One other reason I loathed ballet classes, besides that fact the the girls were scary mean (and the man instructor was wacky) - was that I really wanted to be at the dance school down the street, with the fab funky lady instructor, where the girls were doing a jazz routine (in super fun work out gear, ha!) to Let's Get Physical by Olivia Newton John.  I know.  OY!

Instead, I got put into jazz dance at the same school where I took ballet. 

And guess what?

This gets better.

The recital jazz routine I was to be in was the…….

"I want to go to A-mer-ica song in, West Side story."

That really wasn't what a young tween girl wanted to do.

It wasn't Olivia.

So, I once again told my parents, "I'm outta here…"

And, HOORAY, hello cruising, good bye dance lessons!

Hello annoyed parents, and the crazed teenage years that ensued.

Phew.

I didn't have that whole tale planned.

But wait…

If you want a real laugh….

Take a peek inside my toes shoes.

I have no middle name on my birth certificate, however, my parents put

Vanessa A. Valencia

on my childhood announcement cards.

They liked a certain "A" name, but they said I could choose any name with an "A" that I wanted.

Anyhow, being the nutty mind of her own girl that I am –

It seems, from the proof in my toe shoes, that I changed my name to

Vanessa D. Valencia

🙂

I have no idea what the "D"stands for.

I had such a good good laugh over that.

If you had known me then, I had a bevy of personas.

(all with their own proper costumes, wigs included, and yes I also got my parents to take me to the wig shop at 9, and buy me a smattering of real wigs, I know I know, insane)

The stories are endless.

I only wish I knew what the "D" stood for!

Hahahehee!

As of today, I use no middle name initial, per my birth certificate.

But wait – a side note thought….

Now, as an adult, I love that I was forced to take ballet.

And that in the end-

all these years later,

My Mom found my little toe shoes…

(and that I can have a huge laugh over the whole thing)

Annnnnd - that's all I have to day about that 😉

Off to be some sort of productive.

I have spring fever.

I am being rotten.

It's true.

 

ps:

3 random songs, on repeat, in my head…

1)  The Chameleons

2)  Ra Ra Riot 

3)  Tori – Violet's Eyes