The decision is made.
We fly away on June first, and the house must be dealt with.
Burning it down is not an option.
We rented a large home to accommodate our blended family of 4 daughters, but it wasn't long before all 4 chicks left the nest. Now, there's just a big house, a tiny yard, an obscene heating bill, and loads of stuff.
For years I'd been saying, "One of these days I'ma run away to live nekkid with the monkeys - so y'all can just send all my crap right back to the thrift shop!"
Well, Costa Rica has monkeys, the Goodwill is just down the street, and "one of these days" is TODAY.
Seriously, I had to get rid of a house full of furniture, appliances, and all my shoes.
Some feelings came up.
… those squashy purple sofas never again to be draped with our teenagers … the ten thousand and one meals we made all together in my nice pots and pans … all the games and gross jokes and time spent around this stylish, modern-rustic dining table … and my favorite badass, high-heeled, black leather boots?!
The prospect of getting rid of literally everything that took me a lifetime to acquire was a little sad and strange, to say the least.
But if you want a fresh start, ya gotta start fresh.
There wasn't a garage sale, because of inclement weather. And laziness.We decided to let our kids and friends take whatever they wanted, sell as much as we could, and whatever was left would go … you guessed it, to Goodwill.
And so, the call went out: "Come shop for free at our house! And bring some muscle!" We gave away things to our kids, friends, a homeless women and children's shelter, and strangers through a Buy Nothing Facebook group.
Most of the big stuff was sold online. Since our aim was getting rid of things, not getting a "fair" market price, everything was marked dirt cheap. We thought of it as someone generously hauling our crap away for free, and if we got a little cash money, that was a bonus. Electronics and my youngest daughter's saxophone went to a pawn shop.
Books were the hardest to let go. There were books I carried back and forth across the country for 20 years. Those books influenced my thinking and changed my life - books that were my friends during dark and troubled times.
The ones that could be sold to a second-hand store were; the rest, donated.
I may or may not have cried all day.
But the more we worked on getting rid of stuff, the more this strange thing kept happening.
It felt like waking up slowly, like when that first cup of coffee worms it's way into my sleepy neocortex.
I realized I could keep the memories WITHOUT keeping the stuff!
Seriously, as a bit of a packrat, this was a big deal.
And even though it was scary and sad at first, in the end, getting rid of things actually felt liberating.
I never realized how much of my energy was tied up in all that stuff. I never knew how much it was holding me down until the weight of it was … gone.
One day, the kids and their friends will come over to a new place and drape themselves over different furniture. We'll laugh and tell gross jokes and eat and play cards at a different table. I'll read new books, probably digital.
Ya gotta let go of the old to make room for the new. And we're ready.
And anyway, who wants to wear high-heeled boots to the beach?
No comments:
Post a Comment