ANOTHER YARDSALE
Saturday morning here in the park, and as usual it’s yardsale day. When you live in a mobile home park that is full of retired seniors you just know that something that everyone seems to like to do is to drive all around the neighbors and see what there is for sale. Up and down the paved streets you head, looking for signs of cars parked along side the roads or golf carts waiting for their turn to pull into driveways. It is a beautiful morning in mid November and you can hear laughter and conversations between your neighbors.
This morning Bob had already left for his morning walk and I was planning to go to the yardsale just four houses away. Pulling out my Rollerator I headed down the street. This was a good sized sale so I thought, “Who knows what I might find!” And right away I found just what I needed, a scoop to measure coffee for the Bunn I had replaced last week. And there sat two pretty mugs to pour the coffee in. But as I continued to look over the many tables I began to feel sad and uneasy. The home was being sold because of someone’s health problems and the articles for sale were a mirror of the past retirement years of this couple. They reflected the many interests they had, craft items, baking utensils, canning equipment, jewelry, tools, books, and now they were being passed on to someone else. Their whole life lay before us on the tables. And then I thought, someday this will be us, and we will be “downsizing” also, and all of the things that we take pleasure in will be spread on card tables too, just like it is here. And it won’t matter whether we sell or give it away, they are just things that someone else will find a use for, long after we have moved on.
After chatting with a few neighbors I recovered my normal good spirits, paid my 45 cents, and came home happy about my coffee scoop. But off and on all day I thought about what had happened and how I felt about it. It is inevitable that time moves on, but how I adjust to it is my choice and I must remember that. Luckily I have a warm and sunny day in which to enjoy yard sales right now.