It is time for my annual neighborhood garage sale.
I live in a two-block community that advertises a collective multihouse garage sale. Good thing, too, because this year I have made my daughters swear they will raise our garage door and sell, sell, sell. The money they earn will be used to buy quality books for children living in shelters.
In every room, every closet and every drawer of the house, I find things that were put away and saved for reasons I cannot explain.
My girlfriend calls while I’m sorting and says she just read a book that claims it is important to get rid of things from any ex-relationships. She explains that the negative energy from the relationship could be lingering in the stuff. I nod appreciatively.
My stuff problem is not related to former relations. I am saving stuff because I think I will need it one day.
My daughter holds up my button jar and raises her eyebrow waiting for an explanation. Every time I buy clothing with buttons, an extra button is attached in a plastic bag. I dutifully snip off the button and save it in my button jar. In case I lose a button on the sweater, I will have a replacement.
Guess when the last time was I fished in my button jar for a replacement button?
That’s right, never. I have never once lost a button. Sure, they’ve come loose, but I’ve always caught them in time and sewn them on.
The button jar belongs in the garage sale pile. Maybe a clever artist who makes things using buttons will buy the button jar.
Buttons aren’t the only thing I’m not using.
I have unearthed a duvet cover. To make a long story short, the company that made my daughter’s duvet cover, a Hawaiian print, sent me an extra one because it took them a half a year of excuses to get it delivered.
I thought it was cool to get two duvet covers for the price of one. That was three years ago. I saved the extra duvet thinking if my daughter ever got hers stained, I could replace it.
What? My daughter is almost 17 years old and I never once replaced her bedding because it was stained, not in 17 years.
Aloha. The extra Hawaiian duvet cover is going to be in my garage sale.
Next, I am going to let go of the box of guilt. This is the stuff that I’ve been given, usually by family, specifically my stepmother, because she felt someone should save it, but not her.
The box of guilt includes a collection of six evening purses. Little black purses to wear with ball gowns. There is not a single ball gown in my closet. Never once in my life have I had an occasion that required one, no less six purses.
Despite this fact, I’ll save one of the purses, and send five to the garage sale to find more suitable dance partners.
If I get too worn out making excuses for keeping stuff, room by room, I can always head straight to the garage. When stuff gets moved to my garage, it means I have run out reasons for keeping it in the house. I have shelves stacked with stuff just waiting for this garage sale.
For 10 years I saved a bingo game, you know, for that special moment when the kids would beg me to play a round of bingo. As two are in college and two are almost in college, time for the deluxe bingo game to move along.
Imagining all this stuff, turned into books for children, makes me ready to say take it all. The real test though isn’t me, it’s my save-it-for-no-reason husband. Unlike me, he refuses to justify why he keeps things. He just keeps things.
As he reads this column over my shoulder, he says it makes him think about all the stuff he can get rid of.
We’ll see.
Sarri Gilman is a freelance writer living on Whidbey Island. Her column on living with meaning and purpose runs every other Tuesday in The Herald. She is a therapist, a wife and a mother, and has founded two nonprofit organizations to serve homeless children. You can e-mail her at features@heraldnet.com.
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