The day before I left on a trip, I picked up a sandwich meal that came with a cookie. I wasn’t hungry for the cookie at the time, so I took it home, thinking I’d grab it as a travel snack. However, I don’t like stale cookies. I’m a bit of a cookie snob. It comes from baking chocolate chip cookies just about every week for many years. There was a system. The cookies were best when they were warm. I always tried to bake them within 12 hours of taking them somewhere to share. Once delivered, if they stayed out more than a day, I’d toss them if I had the opportunity. I’d rather bake a fresh batch than serve them old.

But I’ve also learned if they are frozen while they are super fresh, they’re pretty good when taken out of the freezer. And if they are just a little older than preferred, a few seconds in the microwave gives them a fresh taste and texture. Therefore, I could snack on the cookie as I travelled the next day.

Only I put it in the microwave for a few seconds then left without it. I remembered it a couple hours later.

It was hard as a rock by the time I got home. There was no resuscitating it. No big deal. It was just a cookie. But there are other things we toss aside or forget that are more valuable.

Not everything can be brand new. Some things have more value as time passes. We aren’t going to toss them aside because they aren’t fresh.

Some things are much more missed if they are left behind. We have some essentials we need to take with us and would turn around once we realize we don’t have them with us.

The definition of stale is something no longer fresh, something unpleasant to eat. But stale doesn’t equal expendable. Sometimes stale is revivable or reusable. We just have to know what to keep, what to toss, what to leave behind, and what to turn around to pick back up.

Not everything in our lives has the expiration date stamped on it.

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