Time for a garage sale

“You need to have a garage sale.”

No, it wasn’t a wife coming up with a honeydo list...it was a doctor, talking about the stress in my life.

He’d asked me if I was reducing stress some, and I said a little(a very little), and what I needed was to move a long way away and start over on just one job, without all these other problems you accumulate.

But I told him I thought our lives were like garages. You know, you have a one car garage, and think you need two in order to store all your stuff. You get a two-car garage, and soon it’s full and cluttered, and you need more room.

That’s when he told me to have a garage sale.

We’re pack rats, so it got me to thinking about what I would include in my sale. I bet you’ve got some of this junk too.

Springtime--I like real garage sales.

You get to sit around in a lawn chair, drink ice tea or coffee, talk with the people who come up scrounging through your junk. The cat comes out and takes it all in, being sociable. You get people as strange as the stuff you’re selling, and you can negotiate on prices...and every once in a while, you count your money, amazed at how much you’ve made out of old stuff.

Now if all this also applies to my life, and my brain, this could get interesting.

Let’s see--there are old books, old paint cans, old tires, old tools, old clothes, old kitchen gadgets, old toys, spare parts, a couple, old mattresses and old furniture, and other old odds and ends, some in boxes--plus one old geezer sitting there in a lawn chair with an old nail apron on with change in it.

Old books--yep, brain’s all cluttered up with useless facts and memories, most of the covers are so tattered he can’t remember what’s stored where.

 Has a hard time remembering, cause there’s so much stuffed in.

Old paint cans--how many times has he tried to redecorate his life--put a new coat of something old, to hide the old wrinkles, or cover up old mistakes, to start over.

Has the pressure of trying to remember just who he really is.

Old tires--travels too much, spending about a month a year in his car, and usually in a hurry, but when it’s over, he’s not sure where he’s going.

He just needs to slow down and quit putting so many miles on those old treads, and enjoy where he’s at.

Old tools--that’s easy. He’s got too many jobs and needs to get rid of some of them. If they’re rusted and you don’t use them very often, get rid of them, and just do less.

You could argue that he needs those tools to make more money, but if he has to sell them at a garage sale for money, he doesn’t need the jobs.

Old clothes--same argument as with the old paint cans, except more personal. In the first place, lots of the stuff is out of style or you’re embarrassed to wear it. Secondly, lots of it won’t fit any more, so why keep it around. You’re not going back to a 34 inch waist. Thirdly, some of those clothes you never liked anyway. Point is, just wear what you like, what really fits. And I’m not talking about clothes.

Old furniture, gadgets, toys and spare parts. He clutters up his life with a lot of this stuff...all of it for a day when you might need it. Get rid of it and when something else comes up, use real energy to create new stuff. Keeps the brain alive.

Now all this is sounding like a sermon, but all I want is some money--in my case, time--for all this junk. If I can’t sell it to someone, might as well throw it away...which is what you do when you move and can’t get anything else in the back of the pickup truck, before moving on.

Which is where this all started out. Now what can I interest you in sir? That used swag lamp? Tell you what, I’ve marked it at $5, but for you, just $1, if you’ll take that box of doodads along with it.