THE BIGGER LIFE
Two hundred and sixty-five. The number of once “must haves” now priced to become essential treasures in someone else’s life.
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While I can testify that the finds in this garage sale are epic in quality and quantity, the signs might just be the best part of the hunt…
Enter in the idea to commandeer our favorite celebrities to hopefully entice hundreds of my neighbors to drop what they’re doing on a Saturday morning and do a little bargain shopping instead.
I am not unaccustomed to letting go. In fact, each of the twenty-two homes I’ve moved away from have been, for the most part, given over to the next owner with nearly every piece of furniture remaining firmly in its place.
BUT THIS TIME I WRESTLED WITH SOMETHING DEEPER AND MORE PERPLEXING THAN BEFORE.
It’s been nearly three years since I’ve opened the boxes that accompanied us to our new home. On other moves I would anticipate their opening a bit like Christmas morning. This time, I have no emotional attachment to the pieces of me wrapped carefully in bleached sheets of crinkled newsprint and left like abandoned children for the better part of thirty-two months.
I CONVINCE MYSELF THAT THE REASON FOR MY SURPRISING EDGINESS IS THE UNFRIENDLY DANK SMELL, THE HEAT, THE DARK. THEN COMES THIS OVERWHELMING REVELATION THAT I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS LOCKED THE EVIDENCE OF A THEIR HOPES AND DREAMS INSIDE THESE COLD AND UNFAMILIAR CONCRETE WALLS.
Every single box must be opened then sorted—Take home. Store. Sell.—this is my task.
You might think the latter is the most difficult but, honestly, it’s the first that is the hardest of all.
The unboxing is not only of things but emotions that I’ve tucked carefully away. Without sounding overly dramatic or maudlin I will tell you that I have believed [from time to time] throughout my cancer journey that this day might never come—
To stand in the center of a life I once had,
To invite it into the now,
Is overwhelming in its barrage of mixed emotions.
and I lean breathless against the wall.
“Is it worth it?” This is what I ask myself as I feel the full weight of my once-loved life lifted off the shelf.
IF I HAVE LEARNED ANYTHING IT IS THAT THE SOUL TRAVELS LIGHTLY.
UNENCUMBERED BY WHAT WE CAN HOLD IN OUR HAND.
Here I stand, surrounded by the echoes of distant memories, the remnants of seemingly someone else’s sense of home.
I steady in the resonating grief of letting go.
It occurs to me as I strip away layers of packing tape just how hard we cling to what we value, what is commonplace, what we know.
THE BIGGER LIFE LIES IN THE WILLINGNESS TO EMPTY. THE MAKING OF SPACE [EVEN IN THE DARK CORNERS OF THE PARTS OF US WHERE THE HIDDEN BELIEFS ABOUT OURSELVES DWELL] IS NECESSITY, EVEN HEROIC FOR THOSE WHO HAVE LIVED HOLDING ON JUST A LITTLE TOO TIGHT.
I count the boxes I’ve emptied, twenty if I’m right. Loaded in my car are all the beautiful and artistic, and even wildly impulsive parts of me that I am ready to release to someone else.
NOTES:
My family shares with great fondness the love of movie quotes. I can rarely remember an ending [sometimes watching without recognition until the very last scene] but I can recite pages of memorable lines spoken by characters we can’t seem to forget.
You can imagine my delight upon suggesting we use moving quotes for our garage sale signs, when my exquisite friend Kristen enlisted her artist husband, @dane.draws, to create a series of epic signs.
If you are going to do anything, do it big. Even a garage sale…ESPECIALLY a garage sale. Just think of how many fabulous new friends we will make!
Enjoy the signs. Let them be a reminder to make room for the bigger life. I know you will. It’s been on your heart to do it for quite some time.
Much Love.
