Goodwill Run

I loaded the trailer today with several bags and boxes full of old clothes, retired shoes, well-read (or never read) books, useless kitchen gadgets, and even a few of Mimi’s no-longer-favored stuffed animals (although prying them from her pack-rat hands—figuratively, not literally—was something of a challenge), and took them all down to the Goodwill store to be sorted through and, I hope, eventually resold to someone somewhere down the line.

More likely, a few things will be salvaged and the rest will go into the landfill or shipped on a barge to Africa or who-knows-where.

It’s always something of a relief to get rid of stuff that’s been cluttering up our closets for months; I do, though, feel a touch of ambivalence about the likelihood of it eventually cluttering up somewhere else while for me, it’s all simply out of sight, out of mind.

There was a long line of cars waiting to donate stuff at the drop-off point; the girl who was working the entry point took a look at me on my bike with the trailer in tow and waved me through to the front. I suppose I could have declined to cut the line, but I think it’s fair because I didn’t really slow anyone in the cars up. I was able to slide down beside them—which a car couldn’t do—and unload my stuff without holding up anyone who was waiting.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

As I look around my basement work area now, I see tons of other stuff that I should have taken, as well. We’ll never watch those Disney videos stacked in the corner over there again, that’s for sure.

In the coming years, I’ll bet there will be an entire industry devoted to helping people get rid of junk they’ve been carting around and storing for years.

It’s so easy to accumulate incrementally; seems a bit harder to simplify in one fell swoop.