I've blogged about many things, but I never thought that I'd one day blog about a water bottle. It's strange to get sentimental over a water bottle, but for some reason, I am. A couple of friends gave me my old water bottle for my birthday more than ten years ago, way before carrying these SIGG water bottles was fashionable. I always felt like such a trend-setter because no one was carrying these metal water bottles around yet. It also felt a little indulgent then to have a water bottle that cost more than $20 but I loved it and loved the attention it got for looking like a flask of liquid nitrogen... :)
The bottle was with me during the last years of college, through my four years as a teacher, accompanied me to Hong Kong, Montreal, Australia, and has been with me all through the past five years here. Touted as "The Word's Toughest Water Bottle", the bottle has nonetheless taken many hits over the years. Because it is so well made, I probably haven't been as good with taking care of it as I should have, allowing it to fall off tables, knocking against walls, dropping it on floors... And you can see, super aluminum or not, ten years is a long time and the bottle is looking much worse for wear. There are more than a few dents all round, the paint on the outside has chipped and peeled off, and the entire area around the mouth of the bottle has been stripped bare of its coating. And I've lost count of the number of times in recent years people have mentioned how ghetto my bottle is looking. So when the chance came up today to buy a new SIGG water bottle from a friend at a discount, I figured I should just do it.
But then, I felt bad after... I probably won't use the old one anymore (the fact that the coating is all gone is probably a sanitary concern...), but I'm having a hard time even thinking of throwing it away. I can't really say why... It's like I'm having some kind of weird separation anxiety. Maybe because it's rare to have something stay with you that long, however innocuous it is. So often these days we mindlessly buy something only to dispose of not long after, that perhaps my affection for and attachment to a beat-up water bottle is a sign of needing to value something not just for its utility but for the memories behind it, and just the sheer sentimental value of it.
Do you have something you just can't bring yourself to throw away?
3 comments:
Could you repurpose it? Like maybe toss the cap and use the bottle as a vase? Then you can keep it without feeling like it's just taking up space.
I have a wool sweater that was my favorite when I bought it, has been with me on all my foreign travels of the last few years, and even though now it's full of holes I still wear it around the house on weekends, because I can't bear to get rid of it.
Thanks for the great idea, Molly! The mouth of the bottle's a little narrow though, so it probably can't hold much. Maybe just one gerbera daisy...
Nothing comforts like an old sweater, if you ask me :)
Hey, it's me!
How about a bolster that I had since I was a toddler? The stinky kind!
Oh yes, I still have mine. :)
I have an old Pelikan fountain pen that I use everyday. Recently I bought a brand new fountain pen but I realise I keep using the old Pelikan because it writes better, and I am too used to the weight and the angle of the nib, and the ink flow. (It's an affection of a fountain user) That's when I realise I'm going to keep using the old Pelikan until it falls apart on me.
I guess it's also because I bought the Pelikan during an important period of my life. It's all wrapped up with that memory, and who I am now because of all that happened.
But the stinky bolster is a Freudian issue altogether.
Post a Comment