A Real Time Capsule...

I spotted the large can on the kitchen table and I asked my son what it was.

"It's a time capsule that I made back in scouts."

"That's cool," I said. "It says to open it when you get to college. You opening it now that you're in college?"

"I'm going to open it up tonight."

My son began classes at a local college tonight. He found the time capsule in his room so he thought it was time to open it. I asked him before the grand opening if he remembered anything that he put in there. He said he remembered one thing--a small solarium. 

He put the capsule together in 2004. A lot's happened in the past thirteen years. We had our last child in 2004 so everything in that can was around before he was born. There were little things, a cufflink, a tooth, a magnifying glass, a green minute timer used in games, even a Beanie Baby coin. The coolest thing was a picture of his scout troop (in which he was not one of the scouts--not sure where he was when they took the picture...) and in that picture was his grandmother. He spotted her right off.

His grandmother passed away in 2007 and there's another person in that photo who is no longer with us. It's strange to see things that haven't been seen for more than a decade. I thought about the eclectic collection and wondered why he chose some of the things he put inside. No one knew back then that some things would mean so much while other things wouldn't mean much at all. I suppose that's the fun of a time capsule. It shows us a little about ourselves, or about who we used to be.