Alex Chaoukouri
Letting go can be hard. And in different ways. It can be letting go of emotions, letting go of people in one’s life, or maybe even letting go of that pair of jeans that don’t fit anymore. For me, it’s hard to let go of stuff. My parents would describe that stuff as “junk,” although that nomenclature implies that the things I hold on to don’t have value, and to me, they do. You can call me nostalgic, or you can call me obsessive-compulsive, as my therapist does, but everything that I keep has sentimental importance to me. The piece of bark that my uncle gave me before dementia kept him from his daily nature walks, the CDs from my ill godfather that I likely will never listen to, the dolls I played with before all my friends convinced me I was “too old” to be doing that. Heck, I even cherish the Mickey Mouse mug that I got at an estate sale because, while it holds no personal significance to me, it did to the person who owned it before they passed away, and that gives it value. It wasn’t junk to that little old man, so why should it be junk to me?
For those reasons, getting rid of the stuff that I collect is incredibly challenging. Seeing as I am going to college, however, a yard sale was inevitable. My bedroom is jam-packed with vintage toys, craft supplies, globes, and various things that I enjoy, and, unfortunately for me, a dorm half the size of my bedroom at home that I will be sharing with two other people is not compatible with my collecting habits. While I do donate to Goodwill on occasion (with persuasion from my parents), when my mom suggested a yard sale, I jumped at the idea to at least get something out of the traumatic process of parting with my stuff.
The easiest part of the process was picking out clothes to get rid of; even so, it was really hard to decide what I was ready to give up. I like to think of my closet as a sort of time capsule, holding pieces of my past in the form of tacky chokers and thrifted graphic tees. I would pick up a Nickelodeon shirt and be reminded of the 2020 quarantine, a time where I struggled so immensely and one of the only places I found comfort was in cartoons. I would pick up another shirt of some metal band, the dusty smell of it sending me right back to the concert I got it from and the memories associated with it. The people who buy it from my yard sale will pick it up and feel none of those feelings, have none of those memories, and I’m just supposed to be okay with that?
I had thought that would be the case. After every guy with a Facebook Marketplace account bargained with me for collectibles to resell for profit, I lost more and more hope that my stuff was going to get a good home. However, when the two little girls from across the street came running over to our yard with their little coin purses, squealing and giggling about all the games they could play with the old toys I had set out, I realized I had been gravely mistaken. While those children may not love my stuff the same way that I did when I was their age, they will give them more love than a box in my garage. As I disappeared into the garage to look for one box in particular, I felt as though each movement was spliced with scenes from Toy Story 3. Like Andy, there was a specific line of toys that had been my absolute favorite throughout my childhood: Shopkins.
Oh, Shopkins. They really don’t make them like they used to. Seriously, the manufacturer discontinued them six years ago. For their nine years of production, though, I was always first in line to buy the newest figures, dolls, and sets. The gimmick was that they were figures of things you could buy in a shop, then the kid could fill up their own shop. Fun, right? To me, absolutely. I would spend hours arranging them around in the several shop playsets I owned, never growing tired of the repetition. They were the very last toy I clung to as all of my friends grew up around me, and that little piece of my childhood each of those chunks of plastic held was enough for me to be convinced that I would never part with them.
The unfiltered glee on those little girls’ faces seemed to return that little piece of childhood back to my heart. These girls don’t know all the memories I have with Shopkins and will not experience the same feelings or love them exactly like I did, but they will make new memories, feel new feelings, and love them in their own ways. I sat there on the concrete of my driveway and showed them all my favorite Shopkins, explained which ones came in the same sets and couldn’t be separated (like Jessie and Bullseye), then waved them off as they went to go play with their new toys.
Letting go is hard, really hard. There are still a lot of things that I’m not ready to let go of. Yet, I let something go, something huge, and in the process, I breathed brand new life into my stuff. When I leave for college at the end of the summer, I won’t be bringing my toys with me, but I will be bringing something much more valuable: knowledge that I managed to grow as a person while simultaneously making two little girls smile. If you take anything away from this, it should be that, in the yard sale world, there are two different types of people: the scummy resellers and the excited kids. Be an excited kid.
Alex Chaoukouri just graduated from Central Valley High School with honors and will be attending the University of Washington in the fall to study law.
