One of the hardest times of life after you hit 50 years old is downsizing. The kids are gone, it’s just you and your spouse, or maybe you’re living alone. That home with the bedrooms and bathrooms and basement is just too big. The yard work is too exhausting, or too expensive to pay someone else to do.
There comes a time when moving into a smaller space seems like a good idea. But once that decision is made, another reality hits home. What are you going to do with all your stuff?
Here’s one solution that works well: use one room, or part of one room, as your giveaway site. For example, my friend Margie was moving from her big thing-cluttered house into a two-bedroom condo. Always logical, the first thing she did was to sell all the furniture in the guest room, leaving it totally empty. Next, she began filling it up.
The lovely crocheted bedspread she never actually liked well enough to use went into what became her giveaway room. So did the delicate china figurines her daughter had collected as a child, but no longer wanted. The set of dishes Margie no longer used, the second computer that was only four years old but hadn’t really been used much, the plethora of plants that were a pain to care for — all that and more went into that no longer empty room.
Then she began giving it away. Yes, she could have sold things. Some, like the sterling silver serving pieces, were actually worth quite a bit of money. But Margie said that giving these things away filled her with joy. It was as if she would go on, while those items were being used and treasured by new owners.
She knows I have a big garden and several fruit trees, so she gave me her unused dehydrator. What a pleasure! I’d been meaning to purchase a new dehydrator for a long time, and now I had one. The bulky salon hair dryer that rested in her master bath for so many years went to a woman who was opening a casual salon to cut and style neighbors’ hair in her basement.
“I give something away every day, every single day,” Margie told me. Some things went to people who were nearly strangers. A familiar clerk at a local market had lost about 70 pounds on a diet. She asked if she could give him some gently used clothing, because he was now the same size as her deceased husband. The clerk, who didn’t earn a lot of money, could never have afforded the quality of the wool suits left behind by her husband. Though it was a wrench to give those clothes away, the man’s delight touched her heart.
It was such a captivating idea that I decided to try it, even though I’m not downsizing. But I sure would like to get rid of some of the no-longer-used stuff taking up my space. After all, why does anyone need over a dozen bedspreads, even if they’re all beautiful and were very expensive? I have neighbors with six children; two of the bedspreads went to them. The decorative lamp and the small table it sat on went to a family that works in a nearby convenience store.
Clinging to those things brought me no joy; I didn’t even really see them anymore. But each thing I gave away brought joy to others, and I loved seeing their delight at a mostly unexpected gift.
It’s actually changed my life for the better. I find myself thinking about things I have, but don’t really need, that can add sunshine to the lives of others. I often wake up in the morning and take a moment of pleasure to think, “What can I give away today?”
At the same time, I’ve got so much more room that it’s like having a new house. The people I’ve given things to don’t even realize that they in fact have given space back to me.
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