We gathered. I gathered some of it, not counting what my mother, aunt, grandmother, and other relatives failed to deal with. There were unsorted boxes in the attic that NO ONE wanted to deal with. We tried to give away a lot of things that were immediately useful—to someone else—but much of that stuff has been weighting us down for decades now. Some family was resentful about selling, but I feel they should have, and would have been welcomed to, deal with it themselves.

Some people deal with objects immediately. When I gave a gift to a friend recently, she immediately disposed of all the packaging in the restaurant where we eating. I suspect she does that with everything. She will say she lives in a small house, but it’s more focused than that. She has set some sort of internal line and chooses in every moment not to cross.

Our garage sale has many, many beautiful, useful, and valuable items. It’s not that we do not appreciate them, but we have other valuable and useful items already in use. These lived in boxes for too long. It is time they found a more appreciative home. Time for them to be used.