like clay...

Have you ever had a piece of clay? A beautiful chunk of moldable material that someone let you borrow for awhile. They tell you they want it back, but you can hold it, for now. Then they go away. Then you get a chunk of clay for your very own. Everyday you sculpt on the the clay shapes. You add a little here, gently push a little there. Everyday you work on them. You begin to see  fantastic shapes of the sculptures that are forming under your hands. You rub and mold. You fall in love with the little chunks of clay. You know deep down inside that one of them doesn't really belong to you, but you continue to mold and shape and love the set. Like matching book ends. Like salt and pepper. You can't possible imagine having one with out the other because they were made to go together. People tell you how much they love the work you are doing, and how wonderfully the pieces fit together, and you are so proud of the shapes you are creating, and so pleased that others can see how wonderful they are, and just how much you love playing with clay. You have dreams and fantasies about what the finished scupltures are going to look like, you can see the sculptures far in the future and they are beautiful, and they fit together perfectly and you kind of forget that some of this clay doesn't belong to you. It becomes engrained in your life, you begin to think it belongs to you because you designed the matching set. Like an icecream in a cone. You really really love how the scupltures are progressing and are so excited that you get to work on them everyday. Life is great.
Then Bam! Through a whirlwind the original owner returns. They want their clay back. NOW. On the inside you scream that you aren't finished yet. But they have all the proper paper work and receipts and you have none and you can't do anything  about it.  You have to give some of the clay back. Your heart breaks because now your set is not complete, and don't understand how anyone can break up the set. Look close! They were made to be together. You scream and scream... on the inside. But on the outside you just hand it over. You have too, because you know, and have always known that the clay never belonged to you in the first place. Now your set doesn't match anymore, but if you are polite, and say all the right words, you may get to see the other piece of clay, on occasion, on someone else's shelf. Now the scuplture you see will still be beautiful, always beautiful, because you have learned to love it so much, and some of the sculpting you have done is already hardenend, and you will still be able to see it there, but it will also be different because someone else is going to mold it for a while. The finished project, though beautiful, will no longer be the same as what  you envisioned, the matching set... broken.