5 years ago today, the Friday of the long Canada Day Weekend, I was on a natural high.
I had fallen hard. I splurged on a new dress and new cosmetics. I was walking around, a bounce in my step. I had met the one. I couldn’t wait to see him. I was beaming. People were telling me I had this glow.
3 weeks later, I was blindsided. He told me he had lost his feelings and he didn’t know why. (I have some theories)
He has gotten back into travelling in a big way. UK twice, Japan, skiing.
I am still social distancing because of some immune stuff and health issues that cropped up, not related to Covid. I have pretty much given up dining indoors, unless the ventilation is really really good.
A make-up sensitivity also cropped up. I still have the tube of Chantecaille lipstick I bought that weekend from the fancy department store. 5 years old is kind of old for a lipstick but I tend to hold onto the lipsticks with nice packaging.
So I’m going to say, he had a fantastic lockdown relative to me
Some guys have all the luck.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a blessing that I am not in a relationship with him. It took a long time for that to sink in. He was someone I had known since 1999. It’s a sort of complicated.
I was trying to salvage the friendship part. I was still sending him HO links for restaurants to seek out in the UK as recently as May 2023.
Sending pointers for foods, cocktails, restaurants and recipes to try is my love language. Fortnum & Mason! Knickerbocker sundaes! Rules! Recipes from Dishoom!
I just wish myself better Spider Senses and better Cad Be Gone skills.
I don’t really wish him any harm or bad luck.
I learned a lot about avoidant behaviour. I learned a lot about texting, and I learned about people who choose to text instead of talk.
I read a lot about pop psychology attachment styles, and women (or men )who are too MUCH or too INTENSE.
I learned that I hate it when a man tells me to chill. I guess I learned more about making boundaries, respecting boundaries, reading cues, reading the behaviour when the words don’t match the behaviour.
I finally realized I can find something online to justify any approach or diagnosis. That’s the beauty of REseArch on the internet!
What’s on my mind? Stuff. Stuff and stuff and more stuff. All the junk we accumulate for various reasons, both practical and otherwise.
My folks’ buying of antique soodads from the 1800’s. Stonewear bed warmers. Old toothpaste pots from English chemists. Dozens of ornamental horse brasses. Victorian milk glass.
I still have receipts for most of it. Thousands of dollars, retail. I’ll be lucky to get someone out here that will make it all go away and MAYBE I’ll get a few hundred.
A bunch of old kitchen stuff (old Pyrex, Pillivut bistro plates, etc. got sold to Cookin’ in San Francisco for $500. But all the driving and packing made it barely worth while.
All of which as prompted both myself and the partner to pull out crap from closets and under beds and plan a garage sale. God, make it all go AWAY.
There’s some actual art (prewar Japanese woodblock prints ) that has value, both aesthetic and monetary.
All of which is to say, my current frame of mind is that STUFF IS BAD. All of it. Your kids don’t want your stuff. They have their own. Do everyone a favor and toss all your crap while you can still make the decision.
I promise you, no one is cashing in their Lladro figurines to pay for the grandkids’ college.
i wish you luck and patience. i have a similar problem with my parents stuff. although maybe not as severe. i often recommend this series to anyone that will listen. i wish this was ingrained in our culture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97sG2vKgmb0&ab_channel=Peacock
Alas, Denio’s is almost exactly where I wouldn’t want to try and get rid of most of this.
That whole place gave me the same sort of anxiety attack that wandering around IKEA does. The idea that I’m clearly ‘doing this wrong’, and will leave having missed the one central thing I REALLY should have seen or that I’ll have seen it and paid entirely too much for it. Or sold some rare valuable trinket for pennies.
When I used to sell at Marin City people would literally drive off leaving everything they hadn’t sold behind. Storage space in the BA was/is at such a premium that it made more sense.
Folks weren’t supposed to do that, but rules were optional there.
Agree about Denio but a lot of stuff moves through there. I found it much more relaxing shopping during the week.
Chill a bit and celebrate the joy your folks experienced discovering each of these “treasures”. They could have indulged in a lot less healthful spending. One option, call a nearby antique shop and offer them a “cash and carry” deal.
It took me FIVE years to clean out our parent’s (where we grew up) home after the second one had passed. Children of the Great depression, they did not throw much away. I know the over five thousand books they bought, I sold or donated (to the local Friends of the Library) gave them great pleasure. It was an ordeal and I got through it. I am still trying to unload some things 25 years later. Best of luck!
My BIL is currently emptying the house he and my sister shared for 30+ years (she passed away a year and a half ago). Their oldest son is in an apartment in the area and their youngest is in an apartment in AZ–needless to say they are not clamoring for any of the possessions. So about once a week BIL stops by with random things sis accumulated over the years. I’ve been wondering what to do with them, but now I’ll think of the fun she had accumulating these “treasures.” (Then I’ll figure out where to donate them when BIL has moved to FL
Downsizing sales, run by a third party with a credit card machine, have become popular in Toronto.
Some of the better companies are run by retired teachers.
Basically the whole house is opened up for a garage sale. Boxes of used books, framed kindergarten diplomas, swag glasses, clothing still hanging in the closet, Kitchen Aid mixers.
People arrive early, to get the good stuff. It’s fun to poke around some collections.
Those are called estate sales out this way.
Buyers become fans of certain sellers whether because they’re fair or they specialize in certain fields.
Some take a percentage of sales and others just contract for the whole shebang and keep everything left, sometimes including house.
He told me he had lost his feelings and he didn’t know why.
