You know that movie Hook? The one with Robin Williams? (RIP)
BANGARANG! (that movie)
If you haven’t seen it, I’m not sure what you’ve been doing with your time that was more important.
Anyway.
In the movie, a former Lost Boy named Toodles is crawling around on the floor. When Peter asks him what he’s looking for, he says “I’ve lost my marbles” and then continues to search the house on his hands and knees.
At the end of the movie, Peter finds Toodles’ marbles and Toodles can fly again as the source of his happiness is back. And I’m not sorry about spoiling part of the ending because it’s 20+ years old and you really should’ve seen the movie by now.
Today, I am Toodles at the beginning of the movie.
I have lost my marbles.
I don’t mean figuratively. I mean literally.
As a young girl, I decided to start collecting marbles. Not rare vintage ones I found at garage sales and estate sales. No no. I blew my limited allowance on cheap marbles from Dollar General. I didn’t stop at any reasonable number. Anyone who collects anything knows that more are better.
Thanks to my 10 year old self, I owned 814 marbles because I also decided to count them one day. Why, I could not tell you.
In the intervening 17 years, I’ve stopped buying more marbles, but I didn’t get rid of them. They were my collection! I have some pretty awesome king marbles and of course I can’t just get rid of them.
Cue a montage scene of me hauling 814 marbles around 5 different locations in 3 different states. 814 marbles weigh A LOT and take up space in boxes.
I do not need 814 marbles.
So I started to explore what to do with them.
First, I put them on OfferUp for $10. “That should get them gone quickly” I said to myself. Wrong. They’re still here a week later and I’ve had 3 conversations with strangers who want to give me $5 for them and drop them off at their place. Listen, I’m not driving for 30 minutes across horrendous Minneapolis construction traffic to get $5 or $10. It is literally not worth my time.
Now, I am looking to donate them to any place that will take them within reasonable distance to me. Preferably walking distance. Schools, libraries, and even the local Snapology place are all fair game. They won’t even know what hit them 😀
My marbles aren’t the only things I’ve lost.
I’ve also “lost” a ton of clothes and my Lego collection.
After writing my post about how my stuff was holding me back, I got to thinking about why that was. Why am I carting around 814 marbles, clothes I haven’t worn for 2 years, and my Lego collection? It didn’t make any sense no matter what lies I told myself.
The marbles are on their way to a new home. I went through the clothes and made a donate pile of those that didn’t fit anymore, that aren’t my style, I’ll never wear again, and things I had multiples of.
I haven’t drastically changed sizes in the last 5 years, but I still have clothes that don’t really fit anymore. I have a beautiful Banana Republic suit that I wore to the interview that got me my internship in college. I literally wore it twice. It went into the donate pile because it’s a size 2 and why would I keep a suit that is a little small.… not to mention I don’t even need a suit anymore as I work from home. My uniform is athletic shorts and free conference t‑shirts. I also have a different suit jacket that I like better, fits my style better, fits me better, and works with more of my wardrobe.
I got rid of shirts I thought I’d wear but didn’t (looking at you short sleeve button down shirts) and dresses. I don’t wear dresses but I had a few for various reasons that no longer fit and I will never wear again. I looked really nice in my pearls and bridesmaid dress for my friend’s wedding, but seriously what do you do with a floor length formal dress??
Going through my closet encouraged my boyfriend to go through his closet, too! We ended up with a huge pile of gently used, high quality clothing that got donated to a local thrift shop that supports Big Brothers Big Sisters. I did not donate it to Salvation Army or Goodwill as I don’t like their business practices. If someone not named Gwen is going to profit off my stuff, I want it to go to a good cause, not line some fat cats’ pockets in the name of doing good. /endrant
While I was going through the boxes of clothing, I came across the boxes that held my Lego collection. Now, I love Lego’s. My best friend from childhood lived across the street from me and we spent hours in my basement making up worlds and building stuff. Ironically, we usually built a giant duplex where her family lived on one side and my family lived on the other. She always wanted to spend our time making up stories, and I was always busy remodeling my half of the duplex.
Seems appropriate, now that I think about it…
I am not kidding when I say my main forms of entertainment were these Lego’s, Age of Empires on the computer, hiking through the ravine system behind our houses, and sports.
I tell you all this to help you understand why I am so attached to random bits of interlocking plastic. The plan was to leave them with my parents and collect them in time for my kiddos to play with, but obviously life had different plans as I don’t even have kids (let alone ones old enough to play with them). My parents also evicted the collection and told me to take them or they’d donate them.
I didn’t want to just get rid of them. I also didn’t really want to do the tedious work of separating out the various pieces that are worth real money and selling them piecemeal.
However.….….. I do have a 5 year old niece that LOVES to play with Legos. My sister has the room to store them and the room to play with them, so last weekend I loaded them all in the car and took them to my sister. My niece was THRILLED with the motherlode of Lego’s and couldn’t wait to get home to play with them.
This works out for a ton of different reasons. I don’t have them hanging around anymore, they’re getting loved and played with, and they’re staying in the family. When I do eventually have kids that are old enough to play with Lego’s, my niblings will hopefully be old enough to not be interested and let their baby cousins have a turn with the Lego’s.
How I’m feeling
I’m feeling pretty good about getting rid of this stuff. I haven’t needed it in a few years and I doubt I’ll miss it. Fitting all my stuff into a 16 ft box truck felt pretty good, but I imagine an even smaller moving truck would feel even better. Not that I’m moving my stuff any time soon but it never hurts to be prepared.
I draw the line at my collection of TV seasons on DVD’s though. You will pry my Bones and Castle series out of my cold dead hands.
Everybody has lines in the sand and that’s (one of) mine.
Thanks for reading! Have you recently gotten rid of stuff? How’s it feel? Sound off in the comments below!
Getting rid of a lot of my closet was quite the freeing experience! 🙂 I haven’t missed any of those articles of clothing…
Great post Gwen!
I’ve been on a decluttering rampage for the past month and have already done away with a lot of stuff. Your marbles are like my shot glasses. I have a ton and while I don’t want them anymore, I want them to go to a go home. I mean, it took years and thousands of travel miles to get them. This whole process of getting rid of stuff has been quite the experience. Why is it that somethings I am fine with doing a way with, while others I just can’t quite find the power to let it go? Expect a post to be coming out about this in the near future.
Way to go! And thanks for the tip on where to donate used clothes. We go through a lot with the kiddos and always seem to land on ARC, but will have to look into BB/BS.
Really glad you found your Legos. We’ll take those instead of the marbles. Thank you.
I love getting rid of things, too! I mostly donate all my clothes, but will occasionally sell electronics on LetGo & eBay. I just ordered the book The Year of Less to start reading Monday! I’m sure another big pile will go after that! I’m really itching to downsize which would be a so wonderful in really deciding what’s important. I’ve still never missed anything that’s been donated. Can’t even remember what leaves!
Feels good, huh? I was able to rid myself of a great number of things just by realizing that I would not miss them. I can barely remember the things I got rid of, so my gut instinct was right. As for clothes, I found that some looked great but for whatever reason I never wore them. These were the first to go, and haven’t been missed, either.
I had that exact same container filled with very similar looking marbles! Gave them all away to my nephew after not using them for probably 2 decades…
Before donating clothes, I now take them to a place called Plato’s Closet (east coast) where they will go through your clothes and pay you for the ones they think they can resell for a profit. Not a consignment with waiting and hoping they sell, they just give you cash. Granted they are selective & not top dollar, but I walked away with a bit under a $100 last time I dropped off clothes, then donated the rest.
Whoop Whoop! Go Gwen! Minimalism is hopefully taking over! 😉