One Person's Trash Is Another Person's Treasure

When it comes to our possessions I think that we can all fall basically into two groups.  Those of us who save everything and those of us who donate and throw out everything.  Our family definitely falls into the saves everything category.  We also come from a long lineage of family savers as well.  As a result, we recently held our first family garage sale.  It was an amazing experience that I would encourage everyone to do at least once in your life.  The biggest surprise for me was the emotional toll that it took on each of us.

As each one of us brought out our prized possessions to sell, a flood of memories would overcome us.  It was wonderful to re-live so many special memories that we had forgotten.  Each of us would share these special memories with the prospective buyer.  As hard as it was to sell a certain special something because of the memories that it held, somehow we were hopeful that our memories would not be forgotten and that these same wonderful memories would live on for someone else.  As a result of us sharing our memories, the prospective buyer would share with us their life stories and memories as well.  We met so many wonderful people with so many amazing life stories that we would have never had the opportunity to meet had it not been for our garage sale.  It seemed that the prospective buyers enjoyed our garage sale and left with one of our special something items with a smile.  Anything that we could not sell we donated to the Goodwill and to Ozanam (a local organization that helps children and families).  Our garage sale was full of conflicting emotions, but all in all it was a wonderful experience that our family will certainly never regret and always treasure.