July 31, 2010
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The Stress of a Garage Sale
When I was growing up, we were really poor. We moved multiple times and we moved very quickly. I know now it was because we were being evicted from the apartment or house.
So I learned to pack up what I had very quickly. But a few times we had to move so quickly that I was not able to get anything that I owned. So I would lose access to all of my toys. Because of that, I still own a few things from my childhood. They were just items that I was able to keep through the years. One of the items was a teddy bear. One of the items was a desk. And I also have the very first outfit I was wearing when I was brought up from the hospital. My parent’s life stabilized around the age of 9 so I had one home from that time until I graduated.
But I always kept this fear of losing everything I had. My parents divorced when I was 30. They were losing their house because they could not keep up with the payments. I went over to the house before the bank took it and looked around. Everything from the ages of 9 and up was in the house. It broke my heart that once again my parents were losing everything. I frantically tried to grab everything that mattered to me. I grabbed my parent’s wedding photos. I grabbed my art projects from my youth. I grabbed things that I thought would matter to my siblings. My heart was broken. I realize it is just stuff. I am not sure it was even about the stuff. It was about trying to save some moments of happiness from my childhood.
My second son wanted to sell his video games so he could buy some more video games. It is a normal thing for a child to do. He is 12. I went to take him to the video store and it caused me stress to watch him sell the games. (The store guy only gave him $1 per game which also bothered me). My son had plenty of games and wasn’t playing with those anymore anyway. I walked out of the store because I knew it was an irrational feeling.
I hate garage sales. They cause me stress. It causes me stress to watch people part with their stuff. It causes me stress to watch them sell their stuff so they can have money. I realize it is irrational. I realize it makes no sense. Again, it is not really about the material items. It is about the feeling that something is lost that can never be recovered.
Comments (60)
It makes total sense. I tried to hold one of those one time. I’ve rarely felt so stupid as to stand there and let people pay me for stuff I no longer wanted. Never, ever again! Plus, such a pain in the neck!
I am lucky that I learned how to cope with things by committing them into my mind. I decided that no one can take that away from me, and we could never move so fast that I would lose what I had committed to memory. I have few knick knacks and old things… but I have everything in my head.
have you seen someone about this, dan?
I still remember when I was little we had a garage sale and my parents were trying to decide which things to sell and in that bunch of things was this big old red dictionary that was falling apart. They put it out on the table and I was really sad that they decided to sell it just because they had two and wanted to see what they could get for. I wrote that post about giving objects feelings before but I just felt really bad about all of the things that once meant something to us that we’d decided we had no need for.
seriously, i can dig it. i hate them too, for other reasons. we’ve only had one garage sale. never again.
I have trouble getting rid of stuff as well. I still have many of my toys and most of my stuffed animals and a chest box full of crap.
Don’t sell games to Gamestop. They rip you off more than anywhere else. Better use Ebay for people who will actually want to pay more money for a game.
I’ve had the opposite experience with garage sales in my home town. People here LOVE THEM. They are ridiculously popular and I know businesses that will let their employees take off work just to go to a few. I find some really neat things there. I just hate the people who will argue with someone over a dollar or two trying to give them a lower amount when you already know that person asked for less the the item was worth. That is sad when people get greedy.
I don’t have much left from childhood either, but I find that memories are far better than materials.
I kind of get where you are coming from. While I don’t know firsthand, I have a lot of friends whose grandparents were around for the Great Depression, and they keep every little thing because they never knew when they’d need an empty glass bottle or cardboard box. My girlfriend’s grandmother even has an entire attic filled with gallon containers of refilled tap water, because apparently clean water was hard to come by when she was younger.
I believe that’s one of the common reasons why people become hoarders. My S.I. was similiar to you in some ways. He didn’t have alot growing up because his parents divorced when he was about 9 or so and he was raised by his father who thought as long as he was providing a roof over the kids’ heads and food on their table, that was enough. Not many material items for the kids. (four children in all). That’s why he hates parting with objects. (My diagnosis).
Thanks for sharing this, Dan.
I’m kind of this way, too. I keep keepsakes from various times of my life, and some of them I can’t bear to part with, even though they’re just laying around, not being paid attention to. But recently I’ve begun to develop a different attitude about old stuff — if these old things are clear in my memory, then it doesn’t matter if they’re in my possession anymore because I still remember what was important about them. (But that attitude still doesn’t work for some possessions, like gifts from people who are long gone.)
I put my daughter’s Fisher Price toys in a garage sale years ago, but I had them priced so high nobody would buy them. I realized the next day I really didn’t want to sell them and they are still in our attic. I regret selling a few things over the years, but most of what I put in a yard sale is crap that is just cluttering up the house. There is a tendency to hoard in my family and I try to fight it by getting rid of old clothes and meaningless knick knacks every now and then. But the things that have special memories attached, like an attic full of Fisher Price toys, I will hold onto and someday my daughter will have to decide what to do with them.
Understandable. My kids that are adopted~ tend to want to keep every single piece of paper~ bcs they have lost so much in their lives~ including the people who they thought would always be able to protect them.
When the tornado hit~ and we lost everything~ it didn’t seem to affect me as much as I thought it would. For some reason~ it was easy to let it go. Even relief came~ I was no longer responsible for all of the family stuff that was forced on me over the years.
Funny how uniquely we respond to this stuff.
I really feel you. My room has been a total mess over and over again because I refuse to throw or give it away. I have hoarding tendencies, but I get it under control when I know I have to clean up and give some stuff away. =/
I jokingly told my friend if something really traumatic happened to me, I would become a full blown hoarder, but ’tis true …
I am a pack-rat too. And you hit exactly what that is about.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hint of true emotion through your blog until just now.
In any case. I’m a pack rat, but I also easily part with things with emotional attachment. Especially if said emotional attachment is very much so attached to an ex.
I think it makes total sense, I miss many of those things that I parted with at a younger age just to have a couple of bucks to get something that I thought that I wanted. It took me long to learn the sentimental value of something. If i were to sell something for money it would be something like a movie or a book that I have no interest in and never had. The store only giving your son a dollar back is a complete rip off. I would have had him ” sell ” the games to me, then just given them back to him later. That may not be the proper parenting thing to do , teaching him that lesson, but I’m 19, I can be a softie.
We had one garage sale once when I was eight (maybe a little younger). A lot of my old toys were packed into one box. My parents and I hadn’t really thought it through, and it was just my grandma and me watching the sale. So when a couple came up and asked how much the toys were, I blurted out, “One dollar!” Now I wonder what was in that box, and if I maybe would’ve wanted to keep it had I really had an idea of what was happening. My relatives continuously give me new stuff that I don’t always want, but at heart, I’m a pack rat as well.
I get those feeling too when it comes to some of the things I own. I got a lot of My Little Ponys when I was a kid and I’ve keep them over the years, partly because I wanted to pass them on to my daughter and partly because I just could not part with them. I had a house and castle that went with the ponys that were stored at my parent’s house for years while I moved around in the Marine Corps. Because of where they were stored the plastic became brittle and the roof was broken in a few places. I finally took the house and castle home with me a few years ago and I was intent on fixing them but never had the time. Last August when my ex told me it was over I started cleaning out the house and donating a lot to the local thrift. The house and the castle was one thing that I some how decided to donate. I ended up crying over them on the drive home, partly because I gave them up and partly because it was his fault that I made that choice.
I have saved everything my kids have done since they were born. I have all of their stuff from the hospital and I saved every single daycare summary report that described what they did that day. I just cant seem to throw any of it away. I still have all my from high school. I hate losing anything. I even have a hard time giving up some of my clothes sometimes, because i know its stuff I can never get back. materialistic, I know, but it’s mine. I bought that shirt from somewhere for some reason and I cant seem to get over that.
Yeah, I think that even though it’s an irrational feeling it is one that everyone has at some point.
Given what happened to you when you were a child, it is not surprising that you would dislike garage sales, considering all the precious memories it seems you would be parting with in those sales. Selling things back to the store usually means getting really ripped off. you might get a couple extra bucks if you sold those at garage sale or online than at the store.
And I keep nothing at all. That makes sense i was born and raised 100 yards from where I live today
I know somebody who owns seventy year old garden tools because they can’t stand to part with their past. It’s tough. Memories fade, people die, and all you have left of your past are things, sometimes.
I hate garage sales. I loved them when I was a kid, but ever since the economy depression hit, my dad lost his job (he was a cabinet man) and we’ve had to have several just to make ends meet at the end of the month.
I wish you could write better.
I’m not that way but I think it makes total sense why someone would feel that way, especially in a situation like you just described. My dad is well off now, but grew up in poverty. He doesn’t like the throw old possessions out. I think the anxiety attached to getting rid of things is very common for multiple reasons. Thus all these new shows on Hoarders that have made me very afraid of keeping anything over the bare minimum. If I haven’t touched it in a year, I throw it out. I get sad while I’m actually putting it in the bag, but I just tell myself that I probably won’t even think of it again. Also, if I feel bad about parting with my stuff, I find it helps to donate it. Then at least I know someone else can enjoy it or use it.
I has a very abusive childhood. I wish that mom would burn everything.She is too materialistically obsessive. I never had anything that didn’t have a bad moment attached to it.
We moved around a whole lot because my daddy worked on the high lines.
Never in the sane school more than two years.
I would have never imagined you being poor. Nor having parents that were irresponsible.
You’ve come a long way, baby.
I know this feeling.
Watch out because you are showing the first signs of hoarding. Have you seen that show Hoarders?? They usually come from poor backgrounds and have this fear of losing all they have. This post reminded me of that. Purging is good, but holding onto sentimental things has value too. You just have to make sure that EVERYTHING doesn’t become sentimental.
Well. I never had much growing up so having to leave behind the little I did have was certainly painful. But as you get older you learn not to place so much sentimental value on tangible things which are so easily lost or destroyed. It’s just practical. =P Value the people around you, not things. Value knowledge, not things. Well, that’s how it is for me anyway.
Aww. I will keep a thing here or there. I have my blankie from when I was itty bitty. A couple t-shirts from growing up (hey! they still fit!) and other “important” items from the years.
It’s strange, but I was just thinking about garage sales recently. I can’t seem to part with material items either. They’re like, a part of me that I don’t want to give away, much less sell.
When my mom passed away, I couldn’t hold on to much. Everything that was hers, my father insisted on donating, or getting rid of. I still regret not keeping some, and I know that they’re just material possessions, but still …
My Dad also has similar childhood experiences that he would remark from time to time.
This was a great post,Dan. Identifying your feelings as irrational and physically removing yourself was the right thing to do here.. It shows that you are able to sustain a very healthy presence of mind. That is commendable. When you are responding to emotional stimulus it can be profusely difficult to redirect your negative internal dialog and bring your thoughts back to a positive, healthy tone. The way that you handled this shows me that you are quite adept at navigating your way through irrational thought which is no easy task. Had you stayed there your son would have most likely felt the effect that your stress had on the over all dynamic, and would have quite possibly developed a negative association with these types of scenarios just like his father.
This seemed to be a very personal thing for you to share. Thank you for doing so.
well you have a legitimate excuse to feel the way you do, that’s got to be pretty traumatizing to not even have time to get everything you think you need – and when you’re a kid you “need” everything!
I physically remove myself, too when I know no good is going to come from the situation. wise choice.
I grow really attached to my things, too. It’s like it’s dirt, but it’s my dirt.
I wish you would write more entries like this. This was very genuine and a pleasure to read.
Very understandable feelings… the things are associated with those moments.
I understand that so much. I’m very nostalgic when it comes to things or places I’ve lived. It’s really weird. I remember when I first came to college and moved into my dorm, I was in kind of a bad roommate situation and got the opportunity to move in with a really good friend down the hall and I ALMOST turned it down due to my really strange and stupid nostalgic connection with places I’ve lived. Then I realized that this was really stupid. That I would be moving into a room that looked exactly the same but I would be on the opposite side of the building on the opposite side of the room. I’m happy I did that too because she was the best roommate I ever had and one of the best friends I’ve ever had.
It bothers me to see my almost 91 year old granny giving stuff away. Things people have bought her through the years or given to her, if she doesn’t see a need for it or she feels done with it, she will find someone to give it to. And honestly, I shouldn’t get upset about this, but in my mind she’s showing us she didn’t care about the item or whatever was given to her, but in her mind I think she’s just getting rid of something that takes up space.
I have trouble getting rid of books. They were so much a part of my life.
AWWWW! Hugs.
I moved heaps when I was little. Just due to divorces and job changes and other stuff I was anywhere between parents and grandparents and friends of family.
Im the opposite to you though. I have few attachments to thing I own so Im constantly getting rid of stuff I dont use.
agreed. Seeing people part with certain things that hold a special place to them or not is difficult, but the things they sell could also be an oportunity for someone else to make their own memories of happyness. We’re not always going to be around so the memories we make we take with us and all thats left behind is our possessions, which sometimes might help soothe someone elses pain (IE a teddy bear etc etc)
Garage sales suck big time!
I’ve been moving about once a year now, but I’ve been on my own since I started moving all over. It lacks the emotional context because these apartments are not homes where memories are made, they are just boxes that I spend time living in.
It bothers me most not to know where things are when I need them, but I really like throwing things away. It’s relieving to look at old school notes and say… why would I need this, I have the internet.. and then crumple them up into paper balls and slam dunk them into the trash can.
It bothers me when my stuff is gone too. Even if it’s just a bunch of paperwork from school, it almost makes me feel like I’m losing something very important when my mom gets rid of all of it. >.>; I like keeping all my stuff.
Keep the lamp of friendship burning with oil of love, bcos sun rises in east and sets in west but friendship rises in HEART and sets after DEATH
I also have got certain things that I’d never sell but i also enjoy selling stuff.
I clean out foreclosed homes for a living. I am always surprised at what people leave behind. I regularly get baby pictures and boxes full of lifetime memories like diplomas, wedding photos, regular everyday pictures and everything else you can imagine. I hate throwing those things away honestly. I find whole kids rooms with everything still in it like dressers filled with clothes and bed still made with the sheets pulled back from the small child hopping out of bed for the last time in their house. All of it has to go. I donate everything I find if it is in decent shape, b ut pics and important documents just get strewn about the floor at the dump. I hate to do it but you can’t save memories for others I guess.
I can relate to this, Dan. Thank you for sharing. I like it when your posts are a bit more intimate, like this.
“Again, it is not really about the material items. It is about the feeling that something is lost that can never be recovered.”
I know how you feel. Even though they are just objects, they have memories associated with them. I feel especially attached to my books.
I have an issue with parting with things, yet I never experienced any childhood trauma… I just feel bad for the things we have to give away or get rid of, whether there are memories attached or not. I once had difficulty getting rid of a broken bread maker, and giving away clothing that no longer fits is torture.
Anyway, I was alerted to this site by LoBornLytes ThoughtPalace, and I really like what I see here.
I know what its like we moved alot when I was a kid one of the few things I have is a teddy bear that I got for Christmas when I was five or six. Its amazing I still have it. But because moving so much I now only have what I need I throw out what is not needed or wanted.
This is a very good post. The way you feel makes sense to me. Your belongings were real material things, objects with a sense of permanence. Money, on the other hand, is not real. When you sell stuff to get money, you are trading a form of permanence with something that will soon be gone, because human needs in capitalistic society are constant and are fulfilled by trading money (when fulfilled at all). We all pretend that money is real and so important, and we should and must, if we are to survive and perhaps succeed. I think it is very much a conflict, the fact that money is not at all real and merely something we agree to value, because to do well at playing the game in this world, you really have to place a high value on it and respect it. Most people do not manage or value money properly because of this. However, where we all are now in today’s economy, the lessons that were crucial in the past may become irrelevant. America may soon be moving into another way outside of capitalism as we know it, because the game was not played properly and there were and still are too many cheaters.
My annual garage sale is starting this Thursday. Everything is priced and ready to be put on the tables. I’ve also convinced everyone on my block to have one the same day. We aren’t selling to make money but more to clear out excess stuff. After six yearly sales I still have too much stuff and I’m glad others can who can use it can get it at a great price. But, I don’t sell memorable things.
i feel the same way. when i was little i used to steal the stuff that my mom was trying to sell and put it back it in the house. i don’t know what it is. i feel bad for my stuffed animals that i left at home and weird stuff like that.
I’ve been very lucky and have never had to move from the home I grew up in. My parents are still living there. But I am now having to go through things in my nana and poppo’s house to get it ready to be sold. It’s really sad, and it’s not about the things. I’m keeping some of the things from the house, but I know it won’t do much good. For me, it’s not the individual things that matter but the whole feel of the house, and the things have a part in creating that atmosphere but even if I took every little thing from the house it would never really be the same again.
Yea sometimes nostalgia or fear of loss allows for some less than rational thinking about items we’ve collected over the years