Stuff, Stuff, and MORE Stuff....Garage Sale Fever

Now that the weather is shifting into "Spring Bliss" mode, all the sudden garage sales are popping up like dandelions. Of course not to be outdone, my sisters and I are arranging one too. Generally you can find just about anything at a garage sale in the Midwest, and just wait until they get a whiff of what I'm selling. (LOL) A three foot glass lizard covered in dancing ladies, a 100 year old Tibetan altarpiece, all manner of toys and decorative items that aren't really any use to me presently. It is going to be the monster garage sale I would have killed to attend just short years ago, before I learned for certain I am not my possessions. Don't worry my friends, certain meaningful things will stay with me, but it is time to shed my skin.

These years of attending auctions and selling vintage items have really changed me. I can never explain the experience of going into so many estates, and seeing a life carefully arranged on huge wooden wagons to be picked over and examined by hoards of people looking for bargains. To see how much "stuff" the average American accumulates over a lifetime, most of it not used, is truly enlightening. It is a true window to the soul of the previous owner, as you find what was important enough to them to collect, what they found meaningful to keep, a true timeline of their life. And in the end it is all on wagons sold to the highest bidder, all this careful accumulation. It has absolutely changed my view and habits, but in my sister it has had the exact opposite effect. Sometimes I think her house will sink under the weight of all the "stuff" she now accumulates. I admit, I have looked around at her house and found myself thinking "what an estate sale" all this will someday be.

And me? I like the feeling of being lighter, and the thought of sending "stuff" out into the world to find other willing caretakers. Contentment for me today more and more seems to be found in simplicity.