Don’t you just love fortune
cookies? It's like they KNOW. I got this one yesterday, when my husband and I took a break from
packing to go out to lunch. It’s impossible to cook at our house, anymore, since every
surface is covered with objects that have to either be boxed up, or carted away…or
sometimes both.
In case you’ve missed it, I’m
currently in the process of moving. I know, I’ve probably already mentioned
that a time or two, huh? I mean, I've been prepping for this move for at least a year. And now that the time has actually come, it’s…everything I feared it would be.
It's a horrible, exhausting, enervating process
that’s sucking the life out of both of us. Which, I know, seems like a bit of
an exaggeration, but, ohhhh, that's how it feels.
It's kind of crazy, when you think about it. It’s certainly not like I’ve never
moved before; in fact, over the course of my adult life, I’ve moved on an
average of every two years. So why am I suddenly acting like such a moving wimp? I guess it’s
just that this move feels so much more momentous than most.
In part, I suppose that’s because
this is the longest we’ve ever stayed anywhere. In part it’s because so much
has happened in that time. Our parents all died while we lived here—not to mention that two of them were actually living here with us during their final illnesses. Our son got married. Our
grandson was born. Our daughter left home to travel the world, and then came back to settle in another state. In large part it’s because I’ve somehow
accumulated SO MUCH STUFF while I’ve lived here. Check it out:
We have our own furniture—and we’d
finally reached the point where we could afford to buy a few nice pieces, so it’s
actually nice furniture. Furniture that we really like. We have a good deal of my parents’ furniture, as
well, along with a few pieces that belonged to their parents, and literally BOXES of their belongings (paintings,
photo albums, dishes, bedding, clothes, even kitchen utensils, FFS) all of which should probably
be shared with my siblings, seeing as I’m not an only child. And yet…
It's funny how things work out sometimes, isn't it?
We also have furniture and
belongings that were left behind by both of our children after they’d ventured out into
the world to establish their own households. In short, we have become the KEEPERS OF MEMORIES. That's everybody’s memories, by the way. Ours, our parents, our siblings
and cousins, our children…even some of our children’s friends.
It’s a little overwhelming
trying to sort through all of that. It's bad enough throwing out your own belongings. Tossing other people's memories? Can we say GUILT?
It's especially nerve wracking because we’re moving into a
smaller place, and I already feel like I've been living in a furniture warehouse. I absolutely HAVE to unload some of these things.
But taken all in all, this summer has been…not a lot of fun. My packrat-soul
is most unhappy. I find myself secretly hoping that an earthquake or wildfire will
target my neighborhood and save me from having to make the tough decisions of
What To Get Rid Of.
Which, unfortunately, has now become a daily thing. Get out of bed, brush teeth, make coffee, toss a box of journals in the wastepaper bin. Joy.
What makes it even worse…or, I
dunno, maybe it makes it a little bit better, I’m not quite sure, yet…is the fact that I’m
losing weight. That’s intentional, btw, nothing to be concerned about, but we’re
talking TWO SIZES SMALLER! SINCE MAY! Still, the good news, bad news of it all is: that’s most of my
wardrobe rendered useless.
Which brings me to the subject of
letting things go.
I hate the idea of putting useful
objects in the trash. Always have. It’s wasteful. And, from an environmental standpoint, a
good case could be made that it’s borderline suicidal. I also hate parting with
anything that sparks memories, no matter how slight.
That rock my son picked up
while on vacation in Lake Tahoe twenty-something years ago? Can’t get rid of
that. The T shirt I was wearing the day my grandson was born, the one that’s (let
me say it again, because it's really exciting to be able to do so) TWO SIZES too big? Nope. That stays. How about the oil-stained wooden salad bowl that my parents retired in the
seventies when plexi-glass came into vogue, but which had previously graced our dinner table for my entire childhood?
C’mon, there was nothing wrong with it then, and it's still good now. Or the costume my daughter wore for her one-and-only dance recital when she was twelve? She hated absolutely everything about that dress. The colors did nothing for
her complexion (obviously, we didn’t choose them). The cut was as unflattering
to her figure as it could possibly be. She basically gave up dance after that performance—she was that scarred by the experience. But, but, but…
Yeah. Of course i'm keeping it. Don’t be
ridiculous.
Look, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I really
have parted with A LOT of things over the past few months. Really. Enough stuff
to completely fill a two-car garage—all gone now. I think I'm doing a wonderful job. And if dealing with the stress from this wonderful job I'm doing means that I now qualify as actually needing two Emotional Support Animals to get me through the day...well, that's not entirely a bad thing either.
I’m generally okay with letting things go. I just need to be able to keep imagining that I'm sending all these wonderful objects—furniture, appliances,
clothes, etc—out into the world where they will bring joy to unknown people. Unfortunately, the
people in question don’t always make it easy to imagine this outcome.
Apparently, things have changed
since the last time I’ve gone through this process. Very few places will accept
donations of furniture nowadays; and none of them will accept donations of baby
items. Which is ridiculous when you consider how quickly babies grow out of
everything! Even the companies that used to pick up old cars and appliances and
refurbish them are gone.
And so I’ve had to resort to
Craigslist, where—apparently—you can find people willing to take just about
anything you want to get rid of. Sort of. And that, of course, brings us to the
title of this blog.
You see, it’s recently occurred
to me how very much people undervalue time—especially other people’s time. Especially MY time. Because, unless I'm charging them for something, there are some people who seem to figure I should be okay with throwing
in unlimited amounts of my time for free as well.
Thanks to my dick-of-an-neighbor
(which, yes, is how I refer to him all the time now) who called the city on me
when I’d left some furniture outside my house last month for Habitats for Humanity to pick
up…which they didn’t…long story…I can’t leave anything in the driveway unattended
anymore, out of fear of being cited and fined. Sounds like fun, huh? It also means I’ve wasted HOURS in the past week hanging out in my
garage, waiting for people to come and pick up FREE furniture.
Really nice furniture, too, in some case.
Antiques. Vintage pieces. Some of which we only purchased a few years ago…which, okay, I
wasn’t going to get into it but REALLY HABITATS FOR HUMANITY??? You won’t pick
up furniture that’s older than seven years? Do you not understand that antiques
that were produced less than seven years ago are NOT A THING?
But I digress.
I’ve heard ALL THE EXCUSES this
past week for why people can’t show up to claim the furniture they begged me to
save for them. They fell asleep. They ran out of gas. They got lost…
In the days of everyone-has-a-cellphone-with-Google-maps?
Yeah, I’m not buying it.
They forgot. They got into an
argument with their SO and now they don’t need it. Their car’s too small--they thought it was bigger, but it's not. They
had an emergency. Their dog ate my address…okay, I made that last one up. But,
I still have furniture to move, so you never know. Someone could still use it.
I’ve even had people ask me if I
couldn’t deliver the furniture to them, to save them the trouble of having to come and get it themselves. This is free
furniture we're talking about. Free. The mind boggles.
It finally got to the point where
I actually typed this response to one such request: “The furniture’s free, my
time isn’t.” I had wanted to just
type: “Hahahaha” but figured he might not get it.
All the same, it’s been a
learning experience, you know? I mean, maybe all these people did me a favor.
Maybe they alerted me to the fact that I haven’t been very respectful of my own
time, either. Especially lately. Especially the time I should be spending writing. And, yes, a lot of that is because I don’t have a lot of free time in general,
and I do have responsibilities to the
other people in my life, and this house is not
going to pack itself.
But, the bottom line is, yeah,
free time isn’t really free at all.
All in all, however, it’s okay. Unless
something truly cataclysmic occurs in the interim, by this time next month I’ll
be in my new, smaller, sleeker, more streamlined, and (hopefully) emptier digs. With a brand-new
wardrobe. So, yeah, that's a lot to be happy about right there. I’ll also be just an hour away from my grandson (for ease
in babysitting), a few miles from my sister, and a ten-minute drive to the beach. I can’t wait.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are
boxes to be packed…
