We had a garage sale on Saturday here at the Swiss house. Joshua and I didn’t find out about it until Friday morning. We sold our TV and stand, VCR, DVD, ktichen table and chairs, washer, dryer, day bed, bachelor’s chest, coffee table, one end table, and several miscellaneous items. We cleaned up at least enough to pay next month’s rent.
Joshua and I spent some quality time at the storage unit, cleaning it out of dead cricket parts and sorting through what to keep, toss, sell, and put in the garage apartment (by the way, we got the go ahead to stay here indefinitely, as the community house is not going to work out at this time - more on all that later).
After all that, we went and got a Coke, and sat in the storage parking lot, waiting for Curran and Mark to get there with the truck, surveying all the stuff we were planning on selling. Joshua asked me if I was ready to do this, to sell all those things. I said yeah, but it’s hard for me. Then I started to cry.
I didn’t expect that part. The thing is, I’ve had a lot of that stuff since I was a kid. I got my bedroom furniture when I was 10. It is really nice furniture, and my parents bought it for me to last me into my adulthood. And it has. It’s very hard to let that go.
I’ve had my daybed since I was 11. I was saving up for it (it cost $500!) and my mom and I had picked out the one I wanted, along with the sheets, cover, and shams (everything was green). I was saving my allowance and anything I got from the family I babysat for. I was a runner for our church’s annual Passion Play that year. I came home from rehearsal one night, walked into my bedroom, and there it was - my daybed I had been saving for, with all the covers and shams and everything I had picked out, and all my stuffed animals on it. My parents had bought it as a surprise, knowing how bad I had wanted it and how long it would take me to save my allowance in order to get it. I have the Polaroids they took, showing my mouth hanging open.
Yeah, so it’s hard to sell that bed. I have a lot of memories attached to those things. Most of my formative years have memories associated with them. They are also links to my mom - things I have in my life from when she was alive.
A lot of the stuff was from when Joshua and I first got married, so they have sentimental value. Apart from my bedroom furniture, we didn’t have anything when we got married. Joshua said he doesn’t have deep attachments like that to our stuff. Writing about it now sounds stupid, but I do have those attachments. I don’t, however, overly place value on possessions. I’m glad to sell all this stuff. It’s freeing. It is more economical to sell it now than continue to pay for storage and moving later.
So I’m happy with the decision we made. We have many new memories to make, regardless of possessions.
i think this garage sale made it more real to me than ever: we’re getting out of this town! Next spring can’t get here soon enough.
here’s to great endings and fabulous beginnings…..it has begun.