Mile markers

It is crazy the things I think about when life is stressful.

Last night I was remembering the first purse I ever had.  A navy blue and dark red plastic shoulder bag with the white head of a Scottish terrier protruding from the front.  I was three years old and I took it with me to see my first movie, Pinocchio, with my Daddy.

Later I had a green leather purse with white leather shirring on the front and a shiny brass clasp from Germany.  My Daddy brought it back to me and I filled it with my very own ballpoint pen and a handkerchief I cross stitched when I was six.

Easter of my tenth year my mother bought me a patent leather purse that was shaped like a tiny flat hatbox. And every year when school started in high school I was allowed to buy a new purse the way kids today buy backpacks.

What does this all mean?  Only that I realize that these little things have somehow become the mile markers of my childhood.