ERASERS

When I was a kid, I loved collecting erasers- big ones, colorful ones, the white ordinary ones with the green color on one end, the bi-colored ones (white and gray on each end), and erasers in all shapes and sizes (strawberry, pineapples, monkeys, animals, etc.). I also had in my collection scented erasers that smells really yummy. I tried to to eat one but was faced with the reality that the cute, fruit-flavored eraser tastes like slippers (I don't want to discussed how I know how a brand new pair of slippers tastes like).

Looking back, I could not recall how many of them were lost, given away or traded with another. Come to think of it, I also cannot remember how many erasers from my collection were actually used. They seem so trivial now, but when I was at that age, my erasers were one of my prized possessions, aside from my treasured stationeries and stickers. Each day, I would look at my collection and admire them, looked at them one by one and enjoy its different features and designs.

I also remember how sad the feeling of losing one piece is.

Growing up and getting older, I get this notice the simple joys that life brings to me and my family. Now that I am much older, I ask for a lot a of things to be happy. I have a lot of needs to meet like new clothes, new shoes, better gadgets, more money -- most of them material things. And I realize that most of them do not really matter. Like my erasers, the things I want are not really the things that I need to live or survive. Most of the things I want may be useful, but not necessary. They are just, well, collections, for bragging, displaying and for popularity.

I seem to forget that the most important things in life really are family, friends, spreading love, receiving love and having faith.

Writing this, I realize that I don't even know where my erasers are now. Were they thrown away? Disintegrated for non-use for many years? Maybe, my siblings used it for its real purpose of erasing pencil marks and not just stored them away in those colorful tin pencil cases.

That would be nice- using the erasers for the reason they were created in the first place.