We had a huge moving/charity thingy sale last weekend. We could NOT have asked for better weather for it. It was warm, sunny, and beautiful. In the course of our three day sale, I learned some things:

1. People like slowly driving by sales and magically determining that your sale has nothing to offer. And sometimes even if they stop, they don’t bother turning the car off.
2. People will haggle over a $1 item, even at a charity sale.
3. If I had a dollar for everyone who inquired if my ladder were for sale, I could have bought a new one.
4. Dude who offered me “like, around twenny bux” for a $300 collectible KNOWS about Masterworks Replicas, man. He KNOWS.

Also, I was shown, yet again, that I have an amazing support network. Folks I haven’t seen in person in years showed up. People I’ve only known online showed up. Friends donated things to the sale AND bought stuff. After three days, we were exhausted and done and a little bit richer and a lot lighter in stuff.

In between the chaos and crowds, I watched things that used to belong to me become someone else’s. And rather than melancholy, it made me happy. It made me happy to see my Wishbone plushie go to a girl who knew who he was. It made me happy to watch a kid’s face light up when his mom said, yes, he can have that. To watch a woman buy a set of manga – in Japanese! – that I was sure no one else would want. At the end of each day, I looked at the garage, less full, and looked at my friend Danielle, running the show and doing ALL THE THINGS, and was so, so grateful.

The sale was born of grief and hardship. It is to offset the upcoming cost of a horrible thing, and to lighten my load for the move(s) to come. It was hard – SO HARD – to go through my things and decide if didn’t need that thing anymore, with the added implication of, “I don’t want someone to have to deal with this when I die so I’ll get rid of it now.” And I gave up some of my treasures because I knew they were useless treasures to me anymore, and they might become someone else’s. A new life instead of shoved in a box until my brother goes through my stuff when I’m dead. And so I let things go.

And I watched the teenager walk away, hugging Wishbone, and was content with my choices.