Three Squished Pennies

I was staying in some unknown location in Louisiana at some nondescript motel with various members of my debate team next to a train track trying to sleep before participating in my first debate tournament in college.

After tossing and turning for a while and not being able to fall asleep, I nudged my roommate and found that she too was still awake. I whispered, “hey, let’s put pennies on the train track and get them tomorrow morning.” She replied that I was crazy and that she’d come watch me but she wasn’t wading out in the knee high weeds and grass to get to the train track. We threw on some clothes and I dashed through the weeds and grass to the train tracks while she kept yelling for me to hurry up. I placed 3 pennies on the track and then we ran back to our motel room as quickly as possible so our coach wouldn’t come out to find us suspiciously not in our room. We collapsed into our beds nervously giggling and somehow promptly fell asleep.

The next morning as we were getting ready to leave for the debate tournament, I suddenly remembered my pennies and dashed through the weeds in full business dress to see if my pennies were waiting for me. I looked around trying to remember where exactly I had placed them in the middle of the night and then suddenly saw 3 squished pennies waiting for me to scoop them up. I jubilantly grabbed them and raced back to the school van and proudly showed them to my teammates as my roommate told them how “we” had run out and placed them on the tracks the night before. Our coach rolled his eyes and tried to get us to focus back on the task at hand- debating, but we were all too intrigued with my pennies to listen to him.

Fast forward a few years to the time I was cleaning up my room at my parents’ house as I prepared to move to Taipei and I found those 3 squished pennies. As I held them trying to decide whether to toss them in the discard or keep pile, I instead dropped them into a pocket in my backpack to decide about later. Several months later during a particularly trying day, week, month of living in Taipei, I was rummaging through my backpack looking for something and my hand ran across the 3 squished pennies and I instantly smiled. In that moment, I was cheered and reinvigorated. Those 3 squished pennies reminded me of an adventure I had previously had. Those 3 squished pennies reminded me of a time when I was challenged. Those 3 squished pennies reminded me of a time where I succeeded and bested my fears. In that moment, those 3 squished pennies reminded me that the hardship of being in a new place would also pass. Those 3 squished pennies are with me today as I continue to have more adventures and overcome new challenges. Sometimes you need something tangible in your life to remind you of a time you had an adventure, you were challenged, and you succeeded. For me, it’s 3 squished pennies.