A Sword Of Memory

I only have one thing left from The Firm.

The biggest thing, the house that I used my Real Estate expertise to bu, - the fancy one with the file floors and high ceilings and marble counters and carefully planned back yard - is gone, lost in the real estate collapse of 2009 and the ensuing difficulties that caused us to relocate.  The real estate books are all given away, banished from my library as soon as I realized that real estate was not something I could do effectively.  The work computer is long dead, its battery failed as is the office chair, the relatively nice one that I kept until it would no longer stay at a sitting level, leaving only an IKEA stool in its wake.  And the license - the thing that made it all possible - expired ten years ago, dying a quiet and unlamented death in the dead of night in a database.

The one remaining item I have is my sword.

It is really a short sword, almost two feet of blade with a copper guard and a real carved wood handle.  It came in a traditional sheath as well, wood wrapped with leather which was dried over it.  

I found it on line at a Scottish Items store.  I was looking for a true Scottish Dirk, but was taken by the picture of this instead.  It was meant to be a trophy, one of those things that the "winners" do to commemorate exciting events in their careers or lives.  In my case, it commemorated my first real estate sale.  It was meant to be the first of many, the long line of trophies I would have to demonstrate my success to the world.

That never happened, of course.  It is one thing to succeed on a small scale; it is another to continue to succeed when you seem to elude success.  

But the sword remains, a relic of a different time and a different person who saw a very different course in life.  I clean it every month, and every month I am reminded for a little bit of a different time, a time when I thought that my life would have a different course, one that could be much more molded to my will that what I have found it to be.