For over two decades, you have remained steadfastly by my
side. You were witness to the day my parents first entrusted me with independent
access to my childhood home. You endured my ill-advised carabiner / belt-loop
phase despite the fact that it placed you in unnerving proximity with my
braided leather belt and stonewashed jeans. You swallowed your pride when I felt
the need to affix you to a lanyard and leave the slack dangling from my back
pocket (as if I was expecting the call about a head-coaching position at any
moment).
You sat atop the dresser of my childhood bedroom as I constantly
reinvented my identity via the artwork on my wall. You heard my endless hours
on the guitar attempting to accurately recreate a riff to the point I did not
have to prompt others to identify it. There are even a few occasions when
you slipped from my pocket necessitating a return trip to a friend’s house
which led to a conversation that would never have occurred otherwise.
You wordlessly bore the shame of my early automobile purchases.
When I willingly gave money to someone in exchange for a white Chevrolet
Cavalier (with optional Rally Sport fun package) you held your tongue. When I optimistically
traded that car for a used Pontiac Grand Am, you allowed me to degrade you with
the ignition key.
Perhaps most importantly, you were being nervously fidgeted
in my hands the first time I spoke to the woman who would later become my wife.
You had a front row seat for the moment that she agreed to marry me and when we
nervously slipped on the key to our first apartment. You sat on the table at
the closing of our home anxiously awaiting the ceremonial moment we were passed
the keys.
You laid upon a rolling hospital table the moment I met my
son and became a father. You were dropped multiple times in our panic to rush
that same child to the Emergency Room in the middle of the night when he could
not catch his breath. I dropped you as I attempted to situate my daughter for
her first car ride and often misplaced you in the sleep-deprived stupor
parenthood bestows.
Currently, you find yourself festooned by evidence of my
career (USB flash drives), my low sales resistance (I’m talking to you Books-A-Million
“Millionaire’s Club” key-tag), and my improving taste in automotive
manufacturers (I'll see you in Hell Pontiac). I even leave the unused gym membership
tags just because I like making a show of moving them for the cashier at Kroger
to scan my loyalty card.
If your longevity continues, you will likely bear witness to
the day I am forced to say goodbye to my Mom and Dad. You will be there when
each of my children start Kindergarten and eventually experience heartbreak. Someday
you will become a bargaining chip when they insist they are old enough to drive
somewhere by themselves. You will provide me a tactile distraction when I am
faced with the prospect of watching them acquire and adorn their own key rings
and all of the emotional implications that come with such a seemingly
pedestrian act.
I am ashamed to admit that there were times I was tempted to
trade you in. Lured by the promise of magnetic quick-release fasteners and
color-coded key tabs I tried newer models but always found myself crawling back
to the tried-and-true circular cotter. I have even come to appreciate the resistance
to change inherent to your design. I am given multiple chances to rethink
whether an item is “ring-worthy” as I attempt to pry your metal bands apart
with my thumbnail. Even the existing residents seem to protest once a new
addition is at the halfway mark of its journey and I have to force them down to
make room.
Most miraculous of all, you always seem to contain one
unidentifiable key. Is it to the old apartment and I just never removed it? Did
my parents change locks and I kept a copy of the replacement and its
predecessor? Am I, in fact, a highly-trained government assassin suffering from
amnesia who will one day discover the key opens a safety deposit box in Prague
filled with passports, paper currency, and intrigue?
Regardless, I know that you will be there for me. Providing
both a practical service and a shamelessly-exploitable metaphor for the
cyclical nature of human existence.