What I Did With My Beloved Stuff Instead of Selling My Items

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My husband and I had downsized into a two-bedroom cottage, and no matter how I arranged things, it felt crowded.

“It’s not crowded for you and me,” he said kindly enough. “It’s crowded for you and me and the lifetime of stuff you moved in with us.”

He had a point.

For instance, the dining room table that I’d bought for family dinners when my children were little opened up to seat eight people. Since I’d moved into the cottage, however, it had never been used for more than two.

I went through each room asking myself tough questions.

Did I really need that huge, electric frying pan in which I’d made all those Sunday fried chicken dinners? And what about the oversized cake pan that held all those homemade birthday cakes? Then there was the green armchair — the one I’d pushed into the corner because it was so uncomfortable to sit in.

I couldn’t deny my magical thinking any longer. I was an 83-year-old woman who couldn’t get back up off the floor. I would never cook, iron, polish or even use any of those things again.

“Face it,” I said to myself. It was time to seriously downsize.

My three daughters had previously picked out the photo albums, graduation mementos and other, personal, historic artifacts that they wanted. They didn’t want any more. “Monetize it, Mom,” they all three said in a group text.

I’d already tried that monetizing thing, though. I’d had an estate sale, and while out the door would go the little bookcase I’d had since those same daughters were toddlers, in the door came an empty feeling of loss in the pit of my stomach.

No doubt, downsizing by selling my stuff gave me more money in my pocket — but money didn’t fill the hole that the absence of my stuff left in my heart. My belongings were just too close and personal to me. I didn’t even think of them as “things” or “stuff” but as silent participants in the life and history of my family that no amount of money could compensate for. Like the phantom pain of lost limbs, when they were gone, I felt their absence acutely.

My husband suggested donating everything en masse to the Salvation Army or The Habi-Store, but that didn’t feel right either. While donating in that way is a good thing to do, the thought of my personal belongings being loaded into a huge panel truck along with the donations of so many other people left me feeling bereft and anonymous.

I needed to find a way to downsize that gave me joy, instead of sadness and regret.

Then, one day, out of the blue, I found something.

A Google search indicated that a “Buy Nothing” Facebook page had been created to allow people to “give and receive items for free with the goal of building community and reducing environmental impact.”

Building community and reducing environmental impact sounded good to me. I joined the page, checked out how things were done, and decided to give it a try.

The first thing I discovered was a community that I didn’t even know existed and that I immediately felt a part of. I also experienced the generosity and warmth of people who had previously been strangers to me. When someone messaged me for my address so they could pick up what I was giving, I’d tell them that I was an older person and couldn’t manage carrying the armchair (or the desk, or the nightstand) out to the front porch by myself. “Not a problem,” they’d message back and, “Was there anything else they could lift, move or carry for me?”

As I thinned out my possessions, I met more people and enjoyed face-to-face interactions with them. They needed what I had to offer and were even pleased to learn the history of each piece.

Most importantly, I found that because giving in this way was relational, it didn’t leave me feeling anonymous or like I was just abandoning my stuff and the memories that went with it, because nobody was interested. Instead, I felt like I was re-homing it all and giving it new life with families that would use it to make new memories of their own.

It felt respectful to everyone concerned and even, as silly as it may sound, to everything that was concerned. Downsizing by giving my things directly to individuals gave me the joy and satisfaction that I’d been looking for.

My dining room table, which extended to seat eight, I gave to a young couple who were expecting their second child.

It turned out that they were giving away a handmade bistro table, just the perfect size for my husband and me.


Have any of you had to downsize? How did you do it? Let us know in the comments below.