During the summer of 2008, my mom and I worked at Starbucks together as baristas.

It was one of my favorite jobs.

I loved the fast paced environment of the drive thru. I also loved the free drinks, free coffee beans, and discount on coffee mugs.

At this time Starbucks still had really unique coffee mugs. They did not have their logo and name plastered all over them.

I still have many of my favorite mugs from this time period, but for the last 10 years one of those mugs was missing from the collection.

It was a little red mug that Starbucks sold around Valentine’s Day. It had very subtle hearts all around it and it was a perfect shape.

I used it in my first apartment when I lived by myself. I used it in our first apartment as a married couple.

And then one day in 2010 I broke it while washing it.

It slipped out of my hands in slow motion and broke into a dozen large chunks.

I was so sad….but I felt silly for being attached to an object like that. So I moved on and tried to forget about the little red mug.

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Fast forward to today.

My kids and I were at Goodwill browsing after donating some clothes. I decided to look at the coffee mugs.

I almost screamed when I saw it. My little red mug was sitting there. The exact same mug from many years ago.

I picked it up and felt so much joy.

Feeling joy towards an object is not silly, I realized. What is silly is keeping items that don’t spark this kind of joy.

After returning home with my little red mug, I got rid of another coffee mug and a couple jars that did not spark the same joy as my little red mug.

I made room for the item that brought joy, and will cherish it once again.

-Brittany