We hear it all the time:
“You have to get rid of the old to make room for the new.”
And somehow, that sentence had managed to sneak into my head too.
My friends joked again and again about my old sideboard —
huge, dark, filled with dishes left behind by my parents.
And I thought, Well… maybe it’s time to finally tidy things up.
I gathered my courage:
to pack the plates,
to take the sideboard apart,
to send the wooden boards to the country house.
The moment I almost erased my past
It stood there, watching me through its dusty glass doors,
as if silently begging me not to touch it.
But I had already decided:
this is the beginning of a “new life.”
I started taking out the old plates and the “outdated” crystal —
as everyone liked to call them.
Then I thought:
At least I’ll wash them. I won’t put anything away dirty — I’m still a good homemaker.
The moment I dipped my hands into the water,
memory hit me straight in the chest —
painful, and yet so warm.
A museum made of love
There they were —
the little fish-shaped glasses everyone laughs at online now.
My father had brought them home one day and poured wine into them whenever guests came over.
And the tiny Czech coffee set — delicate and beautiful —
my mother had gotten it “through a connection.”
She was so proud of it and always said:
“I’m leaving this to you. You can’t find things like this anymore.”
And those — the large crystal glasses —
they only came out on New Year’s Eve.
Next to them:
salad bowls, an ashtray,
and a small box where my mother kept her ring and a pair of tiny earrings.
Among everything else:
seashells from the beach, miniature liquor bottles, porcelain slippers, little figurines…
An entire museum of my childhood.
The things that still serve a purpose
As I washed the dishes, I didn’t even notice when the tears began falling into the basin.
Nostalgia?
“Unfashionable” things?
“Objects that no longer serve a purpose”?
They serve me, I realized.
Because each one is a fragment of my happy life.
A fragment of home, warmth, love.
Something that can’t be bought.
Something that can never be replaced.
Making space — without losing myself
Now the sideboard stands in a place of honor —
cleaned, arranged, shining like new.
Inside, the glasses gently clink.
Sometimes a shelf creaks softly.
And it feels as if it’s breathing…
or maybe whispering memories.
Or maybe — just maybe —
I’m the only one who can hear them.