Keep Well, Use Well, Let Go Well

A LITTLE LESSON IN HOUSEHOLD EDITING, COURTESY OF MY FIRST GARAGE SALE

One of the slightly less glamorous assignments on my Autumn Curriculum was hosting my first garage sale—or gar-ahh-ghe sale, if we want to make the whole affair sound a little more sophisticated. I had never hosted one before, our house desperately needed a good clean-out, and after having very little luck selling things online, I decided it was time to drag everything out of the closets, cabinets, basement and garage and see what happened.

Turns out, I loved it.

Those who know me know I am a Virgo through and through when it comes to organizing. Give me colored pricing stickers, categories and an excuse to stage things, and apparently I will turn even a garage sale into a merchandising exercise. I grouped like items together, cleaned everything, made prices easy to see and tried to make it feel less like piles of unwanted stuff and more like things someone might actually want to take home. And I have to say, my garage sale looked pretty chic.

More importantly, things actually sold. We priced everything with the goal of having it leave, not recovering what we originally paid for it. I was happy to negotiate, bundle things together and make deals. By the end of the weekend, I had become remarkably comfortable with what I was calling the strategic redistribution of household inventory.

But the part I hadn’t expected was how good it would feel to actually see where some of our things were going.

I’ve dropped countless boxes at large donation centers over the years, and there’s always been a little part of me that wonders what happens after I drive away. Does it make it onto a shelf? Does someone buy it? Does it get broken, tossed into a dumpster or eventually end up in a landfill?

This time, I watched someone get excited about a piece of furniture we hadn’t used in years. People told me where they planned to put things. Dishes, décor and odds and ends that had become clutter to me were suddenly treasures to someone else.

They weren’t disappearing. They were simply leaving my story and becoming part of someone else’s.

The whole experience left me thinking about three things: keep well, use well, let go well.

Keep Well

I’m certainly not getting rid of everything. Quite the opposite. I’ve been working on a living ledger of our family heirlooms, documenting historical pieces, jewelry and mementos along with their origins and stories. I’m realizing that keeping something well isn’t only about storing it safely; sometimes it’s making sure the story survives with it.

There are things worth repairing, documenting and carrying forward. I want to know which ones those are.

Use Well

I’m also trying to actually use the things I choose to keep. The china, crystal, old furniture, jewelry, linens—all those beautiful things we have a tendency to protect for “someday.”

If something deserves space in my home, I want it to participate in my life. I’d rather have a tiny chip in something that has been part of a hundred dinners than a pristine piece nobody ever enjoyed.

Let Go Well

And then there are things whose time with us is simply finished.

Some things deserve four generations. Some things might only deserve four summers. I don’t think either is necessarily wrong.

My garage sale made me realize that letting go can be thoughtful too. Sell it, offer it to a friend, pass it along, donate it thoughtfully—whatever makes sense. And if you’re thinking about hosting your own sale, my very amateur advice after one surprisingly successful weekend is simple: clean things up, make them look appealing, price them to actually sell, organize everything so people can browse easily, and be willing to negotiate.

Most importantly, don’t become so attached to what something used to be worth that you end up carrying it right back into the house. 😂

I’m certainly still figuring all of this out—my basement could provide ample evidence—but I came away from my first gar-ahh-ghe sale with considerably less stuff and a little phrase I think I’ll be keeping:

Keep well. Use well. Let go well.

Not a bad lesson for something that started with a pack of colored stickers and a very full garage. ✨