Downsizing: No One Wants My Crap
Think you’re ready to start downsizing? Be aware that most of your belongings will have to be given away so you can move on with your life.
Look at this desk. It’s amazing, right? It looks like someone stole it off the set of Master and Commander
As part of our downsizing, I wanted to recoup at least some of the money I had spent on the bigger-ticket items, such as furniture. Dallas Desk told me the best they could do was $150. I snorted and said, “thanks anyway.” Are you kidding me? This majestic mofo might as well be the Resolute desk!
This is the desk of a pirate or J.R. Ewing. We bought it second hand only two years ago and paid a somewhat hefty sum of $800. While it deserves to be stolen once again from a rival pirate or lost to a gun-drawing cheat in a game of Faro, I’m selling it rather unceremoniously on Craig’s List. For four hundred bucks.
I digress.
Cost Per Use is Name of the Game
What if I end up having to sell it for even less than that? We are leaving in two weeks, and this desk cannot come! This, let’s be honest, effing amazing piece of furniture, is just a thing. A thing we “wasted” our money on when we bought it two years ago, almost to the day. But, was it a waste? In the past two years, I have enjoyed its presence in my life and my husband has used it nearly every day for two years. So, for roughly a dollar a day for the last two years, we’ve used it and enjoyed it. So what if we have to sell it at a scratch-and-dent price? Haven’t we gotten our money’s worth?
The clothes are the same. I’m not even selling them. Clothing is made so cheaply overseas that it would cost me more in my time to try and sell it all than I would recoup on the open market. They go to charity. In kitchen trash bags. I keep having to remind myself that money was gone when I bought those items. But, if I figure cost per use, I’m probably in pennies on my clothes.
The car has held its value much better; we’ll probably just about break even on it, minus the maintenance. It needs to go too. No room for a car on a boat! Since I’ve quit my job, we won’t really need two vehicles (nor the payment, nor the insurance) anymore.
All of this stuff, in the end, is just a tangle of fouled anchors and dock lines. I can hear my future self saying, “Are you crazy? Get rid of all that shit and go sailing!”
Downsizing My Life
But, in all honesty, downsizing things is the easy bit. Next week, I’ll have to say, “so long” to my family. They have been the most amazing, supportive, and understanding bunch of people I could have asked to be born into. Monday afternoon, I’m going to have to say goodbye to the co-workers that I’ve worked alongside for 14 years. I’ll say goodbye to my girlfriends. My sangha. My yoga teachers and students and studios. Every sacred space. Every place I’ve found a home. Every person I’ve found a soulmate in. Some of whom I know I will never see again.
I can’t “cost per use” my way out of that. There is no amount of reframing that can change the way I feel about the people we will leave in Texas. There’s only waterproof mascara. And hugs. And deep eye contact. And guilt.