I love thrift stores. And sandwiches.

But there's more to it than that.

Fall semester, 1996. I was slogging away at a BFA in Graphic Design at BYU, credit by measly credit. The setting was the majestic Brimhall building, which housed my beloved typography class. On this particular day my teacher, Mark Wadsworth, was standing at the second-story window looking down at the passersby and giving humorous yet true commentary. A boy walked by holding hands with a girl. Teacher said, "She's a one-handed girl." Another boy walked by with his arm around a girl. Teacher said, "She's a one-armed girl." Then a boy walked by eating a huge sandwich with both hands. Teacher said, "That's a two-handed sandwich." For some reason the phrase stuck and I scribbled it in my purple, mulberry-papered dragonfly journal.

I have never forgotten the significance of a two-handed sandwich. Some sandwiches can be eaten with one hand, like grilled cheese or PB&J on white. Those sandwiches are for wimps and lacklustered souls who neither desire nor appreciate the heft life offers. A two-handed sandwich must be eaten with two hands because its bounty is overflowing. Like rosemary focaccia masterfully securing shaved Boar's Head turkey, a salty slice of country bacon, two acidic tomato discs, ruffled leaf lettuce, crunchy sprouts, crescents of ripe avocado, melted Muenster and the unequalled formula of lemon aioli + dijon honey mustard. Two-handed sandwiches are so full of goodness that those lazy enough to attempt eating them with one hand will lose the filling out of the open end. The trick to keeping the substance, the value and the glory in the two-handed sandwich is to hold it firmly at opposite ends while enjoying what lies in the middle.

Fast-forward to 2012. Much has changed since that mundane yet fated typography class. Al Gore invented the Internet, I got married, I had a daughter, and roughly six-zillion people built a blogosphere. I couldn't call my blog "two-handed sandwich" because no one would type that in correctly. (Hyphens are devilish creatures.) My mind rationalized, "A two-handed sandwich is a sandwich that requires a second hand to make eating possible. I could call it a second hand sandwich." After mentally striking oil with my clever new term (that conveniently nods to my addictive love for thrift stores, vintage items, hand-me-downs and trash off the street) the Secondhand Sandwich was born.

My life is a secondhand sandwich. It is good. It is full. It is not for wimps. (Trust me, I've tried.) I am clutching it from opposite ends trying to enjoy/endure what lies in its spectrums of strength and weakness, complacency and desire, abundance and lack, joy and pain. Life is full of things worth holding on to. Things worth remembering. Things I need my daughter to know. Things I must force into words and immutably chisel into the stone that is a public blog. Enjoy my secondhand sandwich, and try to enjoy your own as well.