"You don't have to live like this."
That's what I told a friend who's been living with things she loathes.
She directs her loathing at plants that were gifts that she feels compelled to keep. Some are unkillable. Believe me, she’s tried. I tell her: “If you don’t like them it’s best to get your good-byes over and move on. Not unlike husbands.”
Why do we have so many things we can’t give up: socks with holes; purses with the fiendish gravitational pull—everything disappears at the bottom, and you spend hours digging for things; warped Tupperware® containers that lost their lids; or the odd husband. (Who hasn’t had an odd one? Okay, two.)
Think about it.
At the rate I’m going, I’ll arrive at the pearly gates with that purse still clutched under my arm, only to have this conversation:
Saint Peter: “I see from the ledger of your life that you spent over 6,000 hours helping those in need.”
Me: (Beaming from ear to ear) ”Yes, I’m ready to receive your halo.”
Saint Peter: “But I also see that you spent over 10,000 hours digging in that damn purse for your car keys.”
(Rough language for Saint Peter, but even he cannot believe how long I hung on to that pitiful purse.)
Last week, a colleague asked if I would come over and give him and his wife some advice about their yard. I love doing for other people what I cannot do in my own yard. But that's a whole different story.
He warned: "It's overgrown…monumentally." (Oh, a word ending in “lly.” Yikes. It’s sort of like the dreaded adverb that writers avoid.)
I know the feeling, incidentally. Things get ugly and overgrown incrementally. There are other words ending in “lly” that come to mind, but let's not go there.
As I pulled into their driveway I saw many lovely trees, but then there was this hydrangea. Actually, there were lots of hydrangeas. They had overtaken the front of the house, entirely.
Me: “You must love hydrangea.”
Him: “I hate them.”
Me: “But you have three large ones.”
Him: “I hate them.”
Me: "Get rid of them."
He looked at me. He looked at the hydrangeas. Then he looked back at me. Then he got his shovel and his wheelbarrow.
“Do you want them?” he asked. All my overgrown hydrangeas flashed before my eyes, and then I blurted out: “No thanks.” Ooh, that was close.
Turns out he had a hydrangea-coveting neighbor who was thrilled to have them.
I managed to pawn off some plants from my overgrown garden. Stuff was coming and going all week in one giant relocation program.
In the end, their yard was stunning.
I got this email from him a few weeks later: "It all came from your giving us permission to make ugly things go away, and reassuring us that all we needed to do was rearrange a little."
Which reminds me of this family that had this cat. This cat was old. They got it when their kids were little. Anyway, long after the kids left home, the couple divorced. There were endless things to divide: businesses, properties, you name it. It all went smoothly.
Until they got to the cat.
They fought over that cat.
Neither wanted it.
They called their three grown kids. None of them wanted the cat.
Turns out some ugly things are harder to get rid of than others. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a twenty-year-old, nasty cat? Harder than three overgrown hydrangeas, that’s for sure.
And while I'm at it, you know that library book that you started weeks ago? The one you say that you “can’t seem to get into?” Return it.
You don't have to read it. Do you think the librarian cares?
What’s she going to say: “I see you didn’t read this.” Then she’ll run off to the annual American Library Association meeting, and while reporting on last year’s stats on the number of books and DVDs loaned out, she’ll drop this bombshell: “We have a patron who checks books out and never reads them.”
So today, permission to purge granted. Totally.