Bittersweet feelings surround the upcoming garage sales. On one hand, lightening the load feels freeing; on the other, it feels like an amputation of sorts.
The good news is that the only REAL amputation I have ever experienced was having my chest masculinized, which was one of the most joyous occasions of my life. To have a flat, male chest is so freeing and selfhood-proclaiming. It revolutionized my feelings about my body. I own and take better care of it now, even though it still isn’t the exact configuration that my brain insists it should be. (South of my navel, it still feels completely antithetical to who my brain insists I am.)
So, for me, amputation is not the ending of something sacred, but the beginning of something sought: the freedom to begin again anew in a world that embraces diversity, nature and equanimity.
Sadly, the United States is no longer that place — if, indeed, it ever was. (The more I learn about American history, the less I am convinced it was ever “a shining city on a hill” except for the rich, male few in power. We white kids were sold a bill of goods. Kids of color knew all along how stacked the deck has always been against them, and now it’s stacked against most of us by plutocrats, oligarchs, trillionaires and corporations.)
These garage sales items mean more to me than they will probably mean to the people who look them over and pick and choose among them. They were things I chose to add to my life at one time or another. They gave me smiles, wisdom, peace, comfort, or some other positive feeling. But I’m not attached to many things, or to many people, which frees me up to start again, over and over if necessary, to adapt to my changing sensibilities and needs.
Letting go of this stuff brings a sigh, but it’s sigh that runs the spectrum from nostalgia to the novelty of seeking new horizons.
Onward, ever onward!
My grandparents came to America from Europe. Their ancestors were scattered across the globe from China to Borneo to Africa and beyond. I’m simply moving toward some of my South/Latin America roots. It will be a type of homecoming. My DNA is being called homeward…
