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I was always the kind of kid who held on to their stickers. Especially the ones I loved the most. If it was puffy, or holographic, or just a particularly great selection of stickers of my favorite boy band , it stayed on its backing. There was no Trapper Keeper or pencil case that could ever be good enough for those stickers.
My miserly approach to using stickers, as I’d come to realize in adulthood, didn’t allow me to enjoy those special ones any more, or for any longer. In fact, it meant I couldn’t enjoy them at all! Stickers on the front of a Trapper Keeper can be appreciated and fawned over. Keeping stickers on their backing in the bottom of a desk drawer is the same as having no stickers at all.
I eventually did use those boy band stickers ( literally this year , on some happy mail to friends 20 years later). And it steeled my resolve to stick to my hard-earned adult mantra: Don’t be afraid to use your good stuff.
Today, allow me to welcome you to the club…
Day 14: Break out some of “the good stuff.”
Those things you’re keeping for a special occasion? Today is that occasion. (Or maybe this week, this month, or this season.)
Burn the good candle. Open the vintage bottle of wine. Wear the fancy dress. Bust out grandma’s plates for your pizza. Spritz the expensive perfume and slather on the pricey lotions. Crack open that deathbed book. Make something with the really nice yarn or paint. And use the damn stickers!
The holidays are a time for making magic—and if that’s not an excuse to burn the candle or open the wine you’ve been saving, I don’t know what is.
If you’re struggling with this prompt, consider all your options: You could save that candle or bottle for a really special night, but will it make that night any more special? In fact, I think it’s the ordinary nights—the random Friday in quarantine—that carry way more potential for your finest wares to do what they were born to do: make magic out of the mundane.
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