Love it, then let it go

10/22/09 Comfy chair, sold on craigslist for $30; Star Wars model kit, sold on eBay for $1.04

I've been savoring the unexpected sweetness of letting things go. By getting rid of something, I gain a new appreciation for it and, for a few moments at least, think more deeply about it than I probably ever have.

Take this authentic scale model of Darth Vader's Tie Fighter. I was never into models as a kid, but someone gave this to me, anyway. At the impulsive age of seven, I took about half the parts out of the package, threw some black paint on the Darth Vader figurine -- the picture's blurry, but trust me, it's a horrendous paint job -- and then put it all back in the box for thirty years. Not exactly a cherished possession.

And yet, today, as I mailed it off to Birmingham, Alabama, I considered what a great model it is. It would be pretty neat to carefully build it and, if done right, would look very cool. I don't have any desire to put it together, but I actually got more joy out of realizing that someone will appreciate it's value than I ever got from owning it. Hey, Mark, once it's done, send pictures.

Even better, it turns out that I'm not the only one taking a final moment to cherish something that's headed out the door.

When Joanna arrived home today, she saw something we NEVER see: our two cats sleeping together in one spot. The cats get along fine and often hang out near each other. But, in their six and a half years of life, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen their bodies touch as they sleep. And I'd have a few fingers left over. (For more on Bird & Trane, check out this earlier post.)

When Joanna walked through the door, she was so shocked to see them pressed up against each other that she snapped the photo above.

What Joanna didn't know, but the cats could apparently intuit, was that within an hour the chair they were sharing would be gone. We'd decided to downsize it for two reasons: 1) we virtually never sat in it, and 2) the cats had scratched it up pretty badly. Because it was scratched up, we'd relegated it to the mud room, where it just served as a place to sit when I put on my boots.

However, the cats used it all the time. When they weren't scratching it, they were sitting on the back of it, looking out the window. Trane, in particular, loved that chair. Four days out of five, I'd see him sitting on the back of it waiting for me as I approached the front door.

I don't have any worries about the cats missing their chair. They embraced their opportunity to enjoy its final moments with us. Be thankful for what you had, and be glad it's gone to a better place. That's the true spirit of downsizing.