Have you ever wanted a keychain so bad that you go out of your way to purchase it? Me neither.

I saw an oversize brass keychain that was too big to be true. Could it possibly a geometric symbol of chicness and by sheer magnanimity, serve as its own location device? I had to have it. Thing was, the store’s location could not have been farther from “on the way” to anywhere.

I booked a massage after a long several weeks and it was in the neighborhood with the keychain. Naturally, I headed over to retrieve my overpriced brass key-keeper.

Contrary to my typical style of picking the CD in the back because it’s probably less tampered with, I grabbed the front box. Gettin’ crazy here folks. It was the part of me that said “just take the one in the front, J – there are only two left, how bad could the front one be?” Well…

I get the box home, excited like a little kid on Christmas morning. A kid who, for some reason, puts a keychain at the top of her Christmas list. Right under “training bras” (true story: I put training bras on my Christmas list back in the day when Limited Too was all the rage and I had no breasts – one of those things is no longer true).

Box, empty.

All I could really do was laugh. What else was I going to do? This was clearly a metaphor – I just had to stop my giggling long enough to figure out what exactly the key was (oh, don’t get me started).

Not being able to justify the out-of-the way trip that had me putting off getting to the store in the first place, I borrowed my roommate’s car and combined a trip to the boutique shop with a retrieval of a long lost water bottle at a friend’s house and a grocery run. #productive

I’ve been thinking about it today – and I’ve been on a lot of missions lately to find my brass keychains. No more overpriced emptiness and unfulfilling appearances, even if that means turning around and heading right back where I came from to get what I set out for in the first place.

Something may look appealing, it has the look and feel of something I want and the box may even be a really nice one. But there’s only one thing missing – that wow factor – what it is I truly want and what I’m learning to believe that I deserve. I’ve had a lot of great boxes lately but they’re a little light, lacking in depth and weight. I’m making those return trips, revisiting those empty spots and filling them up with opportunity.

Filling them up with the good stuff.

Now that’s the key.