Letting Go of Treasures
The sentimental value of inexpensive jewels
I tell people that after my grandparents died they came to live with me. My grandmother passed away in September of 2011, and my grandfather a few months later. I had a special connection with each of them and “sad” doesn’t begin to describe how I felt when they were gone.
The grieving process was long.
Managing their affairs was complicated.
My father and aunt had already passed away and so my grandparents entrusted me to manage the “death responsibilities,” as I call them. “Managing an estate” sounds like something a New York banker does for his millionaire clients. Death responsibilities are not glamorous. They included combing through files to locate every utility to change into my name until the house could be sold. They included cancelling subscriptions to magazines and newsletters.
Death responsibilities included standing in the middle of a home full of vases, record albums, tables, chairs, and boxes of dolls and doilies and wall hangings. Taking inventory, stacking boxes for the Goodwill, and bagging up load after load of half-empty bottles of aspirin, bug spray and chipped flower pots to take to the dump.
It was overwhelming.
It was heartbreaking.
My grandparents moved many times throughout their lives. My grandma started on a farm in North Dakota and her adventurous spirit took her to Washington, Hawaii, California, and finally to Oregon, with a brief experiment in Arizona along the way. My grandfather, who is actually my step-grandfather, also lived in many different places during his military career and then was along for the ride with my grandmother.
Each time they moved they brought all their old stuff with them and acquired new things. Each new house seemed to have more cupboards, more closets, more garage space. They weren’t hoarders. Their homes didn’t have stacks of papers or piles of stuff strewn everywhere; their possession were neatly stored. They just had a lifetime worth of belongings stuffed into every available space.
They cherished their belongings for the memories, and also held onto things out of a desire not to waste. They both had grown up in circumstances that required thrift.
Their belongings weren’t especially valuable. They were just plentiful. I took an entire trunk worth of jewelry to be cataloged and appraised, and dutifully wrote down “$0” next to each item’s listing as the jeweler told me “Costume jewelry, no value” over and over. It is true that most of the baubles were not made of precious metals or stones. From an estate inventory point of view, they were not worth anything. But they meant something to my grandma. They were gifts or handed down from her mother or purchased with her hard earned money. And because of that, they are worth something to me, too.
The last piece of jewelry that she received was a gift from me. Knowing her love for big, opulent pieces, I picked out a Stella and Dot ring with a swollen cluster of faux pearls, and brought it with me on one of my visits to see her. She was happy.
For a while I wore my grandmother’s jewelry every day. I set about ten of her necklaces and rings in my own jewelry box. But there is too much of it, an overwhelming amount, and the rest of it is hidden deep in a closet. Someday I will go through it again and decide what I truly want to wear and keep. And the rest of it…the tattered bracelets and faux diamond rings…I guess they will go to the Goodwill.
My grandmother had distinct taste. I loved that about her. And now I have what may be the world’s only brass chandelier painted over in a color best described as a cross between a muted turquoise and powder blue. I also have the leopard print chairs that she bought for her lanai when she lived in Honolulu. I have a photo of my dad sitting on one of those chairs during an R&R break from Vietnam.
Knowing how much they valued their possessions made it difficult to get rid of them. My relatives took some objects – paintings, a chair, a lamp, the computer, photos. I took the most belongings, a small trailer’s worth.
To Nana, 1939
My grandfather had a silhouette painting on his bookshelf. Inscribed on the back was “From Daniel to Nana on Mother’s Day, May 1939.” If he had kept this treasure for 75 years, how could I give it away now? I have mixed feelings. I don’t want to be the keeper of the family heirlooms. Yet I feel obligated to keep these things.
My preference is to have minimal stuff. I don’t like having a lot of decorations in my home. I can’t stand visual clutter. The words “knick-knack” and “trinket” bother me.
I wanted my grandparents with me. After they passed away, the closest thing to having them with me was to surround myself with their belongings. My living room now has more objects that belonged to my grandparents than anything I acquired on my own.
It has been three years since they died. I’ve begun to think it is time for my grandparents to move out. My minimalist tendencies are getting stronger along with the desire to reflect my own style instead of living in a shrine.
One piece of furniture that I inherited is my grandfather’s armoire. It has four shelves and a glass door that locks with a key. That is plenty of room for his silhouette painting, his baby shoes and framed photos. It’s big enough to hold their memories. I can unlock it when I want to visit the past. Maybe I can let the rest go.
Hike, Cry, Eat Pasta, Cry
Hike, cry, eat pasta, cry
I’m back from my three week tech break and feel like I was on another planet. I didn’t miss the web or social media at all. But re-entry into the regular world is disorienting.
While on my tech break, I went to Italy as part of a class I’d been taking on emotional intelligence. We stayed at an alpine village hotel in the Dolomites, where from morning to night we practiced identifying and owning our feelings, wants and stories about ourselves and other people, and then speaking those truths. Some of this was done at the hotel, and some while hiking on nearby mountain trails. When I described the class to people, I said we were going to talk about our feelings, cry, hike, cry, eat some pasta, cry. That was a fairly accurate prediction.
It was rough. And I’m used to this kind of thing – being direct, tapping into my emotions, trying to understand where other people are coming from. I’m a huge fan of the Nonviolent Communications movement and work to incorporate the NVC principles into my daily life.
But this was different. It was immersive, for one thing – over a week of focused practice and not a lot of time to process or reflect in between sessions.
A wise person said, “Steep mountain paths lead to many insights.” OK, I made that up.
We were all vulnerable and asked to be honest about our hurt feelings or anger, when in everyday life the pressures of social norms often have us disguise our emotions so as not to upset anyone. It was also triggering. Revealing uncomfortable feelings in the moment flipped open the lid where those same feelings had been hidden away in the past, when it didn’t feel safe to explore them. But when does it ever feel safe?
No doubt the experience was harder because my beloved cat has been so sick. We were in and out of kitty ER three times in the months leading up to trip, and I only felt comfortable leaving Milo because his new pet sitter is a vet tech who thought he was stable enough to hold on until I was home. There were some scary middle-of-the-night texts when he had to go back to the hospital, and a voicemail letting me know he’d been diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma.
It wasn’t all gloomy. There was great scenery, hikes, laughs and new friendships. There’s no better way to bond than sequestering 39 people in a small Italian village for a week of emotional plumbing.
Jet-lagged and sad, I didn’t do much besides sleep and laundry for the first few days back home. Re-entry into the land of the internet is taking some adjustment. I have two tendencies: connect and avoid. It’s so easy for me to go off the grid and enjoy my solitude, until suddenly I realize that I miss people. My last emotional intelligence class project is to seek a healthy middle ground.
Hike, cry, eat pasta, cry – it’s not such a bad class formula after all.
Taking a Break
Today is a milestone: I sent my manuscript off to an editor! After a year of starts and stops, this is a big step forward. Clink, let’s raise a glass to that understatement!
Of course once the editor sends it back in a few weeks, I will still have work to do. I will go through her recommendations, add, delete, rewrite and do another round of polishing.
But while the editor is working, it is best that I’m not. Otherwise we could get into a version control nightmare. I am happy to avoid that!
So what to do with three weeks? It would be prudent to use this time to write my book proposal. It’s a huge task, and one that I’ve been dreading. Or I could work on the twenty-minute talk I’m preparing to give to small groups, to start drumming up an audience of future readers and happy job quitters.
Should I?
Nah.
I’m going to take a break. I’ve been working nearly every single day, weekends included, on my consulting business, book, blog or all three and think my perspective is narrowing. I want to put all my work aside and shut off from technology as much as possible. PC closed, phone silenced, tv off. Well, the tv is a gimme since I rarely watch it anyway.
This is my chance to turn off the usual noise my head and see what else I might like to think or feel or deal with.
Since early August, I’ve been taking a class that focuses on interpersonal awareness and managing relationships. It is turning out to be heavier than I anticipated. Not that I was expecting a class on these topics to be lighthearted fun, but c’mon, I’ve participated in so many of these types of workshop already! I went into it thinking this class would be remedial, a piece of cake. More like humble pie!
Sigh. I guess there’s always more to learn and process.
So this is a great time to take a tech break. I’ll focus on getting as much as possible from my class. I’ll spend more time outside, read and try to relax.
I’ll be back with a new post mid-September, and hopefully with a clearer head, a fresh perspective, a tightly edited manuscript, and much to report back on. See you then!
Stress is Not Mandatory
After receiving my 10 year service award…so exhausted!
For most of my career I thought stress was unavoidable and therefore something I needed to simply accept. You know how it is in an office – the deadlines, the pressure, the politics – it’s always something.
It could be diminished by a relaxing vacation and it could be forgotten about when I was immersed in a good book, but stress was always present in one form or another.
Then I quit my job and realized I didn’t have to just accept it. After all, I quit that whole pile of job stress and walked away!
Of course as I changed my career I encountered new kinds of stress (I previously blogged about the difference in pressure being an entrepreneur vs. an employee). But this stress is much easier to deal with. Once I unplugged from the corporate machine, life slowed way down. Now instead of a constant flow of adrenaline, there are ebbs and flows. There is also a lot more space to deal with the tension, both in my days and in my brain.
Stress is not mandatory.
If They’re Not Cheering For You, Ignore Them
In my last few days at my old job when everyone knew I was leaving, my coworkers were great. They were glad for me, they admired my decision and many were wistful because they wished they were leaving, too.
Outside of the office, it was a different story. When I happily shared the news with friends, their responses were often negative. One pal’s reaction was “Oh no, I’m sorry.” And then, “Why did you do that?” This was a guy who had listened to me complain for years about how exhausted I was from working all the time, who knew that I wanted something better for my life.
They weren’t trying to be mean; they just didn’t understand why I would leave a steady job to go write for a month and launch a business. They were a little concerned about the risk I was taking but mostly they were reflecting their own fear.
They were unhappy in their careers but afraid to make changes. They projected their worries about what would happen if they didn’t have regular jobs. The uncertainty was too scary.
I was disappointed that these friends didn’t celebrate with me, but I understood why. I also understood that I didn’t have to listen to their doubts. The cheering section was much more fun!
Once You Decide to Quit Your Job, You Might Enjoy it More Than Ever
It is a phenomenon that I heard over and over from people who I spoke to about quitting their jobs. Once they decided on a specific date to resign, they started enjoying their work again.
Most of these people were waiting for an event several months in the future, like receiving an annual bonus, before they announced that they were leaving. So while they knew that they were on their way out, their coworkers and managers did not.
This secret changed the way they thought, felt and behaved at work. One woman who spent half a year planning to quit her law firm said, “Those were the best six months of my career.”
These are the reasons why deciding to quit made employees like their work again:
They spent more time with coworkers they cared about. They knew that they weren’t going to see them five days a week anymore and would miss them. They made a point to stop by their desks to chat, eat lunch together and enjoy their company while they still could.
They stood up for themselves. On the flip side of missing their friends, there were other coworkers that they were looking forward to never seeing again. Until then, instead of ignoring or downplaying passive-aggressiveness or behavior designed to humiliate them, they told the offenders that it wasn’t OK to treat them that way.
They took more risks. All those great ideas that were tamped down out of fear of failure suddenly had new potential. Instead of going along with their managers’ terrible business proposals, they pointed out how different approaches would generate better results.
They set boundaries. They stopped working late nights and went home for dinner. They put their smartphones down and spent their weekends with friends and family, having fun and relaxing.
They kept it in perspective. Instead of getting worked up about the crap their bosses said, their long commutes and inane company policies, they reminded themselves that in a very short time it wouldn’t be their problem any longer.
All of this adds up to taking their power back. They had a lot less to lose since they were on their way out and wouldn’t be around to be punished in the next annual review. They stopped being afraid and started prioritizing their health, relationships and happiness.
Wouldn’t it be great if employees treated themselves with this level of self-respect all the time, not just when they are about to quit?
Fear is a Powerful Motivator
Last weekend I went to a monthly creativity group meeting that I’ve belonged to for about a year. We do fun little art and writing projects that stimulate creative thinking and help get past blocks.
At this meeting, the facilitator gave us a piece of paper with a quote from Jill Badonsky on it. Part of it read, “Many of us think we need to push and pressure ourselves in order to reach goals, and we ruthlessly call ourselves names without much regard to what this is doing to that little spirit inside of us that’s in charge of much of our creativity.”
I don’t call myself names, but when it comes to working on my manuscript I think I do need to pressure myself. I’ve written before about how much I struggle to make progress on my book. For my entire life I’ve been driven to achieve every goal I’ve set, and just plugged away at it until I was done. Until I started writing a book. And it drives me nuts.
At first I established a goal of writing every day, but I ended up with more poetry than book content. I made more progress when I decided to write at least one book sentence each day. Then I used Nanowrimo to push to 50,000 words. And finally I set and achieved the goal of finishing my first draft by the end of 2013.
Since then, I’ve been struggling with my rewrites. I love editing other people’s work, but when it comes to my own, it is so damn hard.
I don’t hate it. It’s more like being afraid of it.
Writing first thing in the morning helps. Eating well and exercising helps. The momentum from the chain habit worked very well for about 100 pages, but after I got sick and broke it, it was easy for me to break it again when I went on vacation last week. And since I’ve been home, I haven’t gotten back into a routine yet.
Part of the challenge is that my revisions take a different type of energy and brainpower than I’m used to using. I have to get my head into my topic without distraction and stay there, laser focused, until I have an idea of what needs to change. The changes might be moving paragraphs from one place to another, filling out a skimpy section, or trying to write a smooth transition sentence. Sometimes I stare at what I’ve written and I know it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work at all. But I don’t know how to fix it.
My most useful tactic in the past for achieving my goals was simple: I just kept working on it until I was finished. No obstacle was insurmountable. But with my book, I can stare at a page and not know what to do. This can go on for days.
Then I go to my two-sided writing hell, where on one fiery wall of doom are the parts of my book that I don’t know how to fix and on the other is a flaming mass of pressure to just finish the damn thing.
Last night I finally had enough of carrying around the feeling of fear in my chest and decided that today would be better. I got up and started writing this post. I still have to work on my book, an article and some consulting work, but I am determined to channel that tension into productivity.
I would much rather be propelled by positive energy, but I’m not alone. Lots of people are motivated by fear. On Tuesday night I listed to a TED Radio Hour show about Diana Nyad, who at age 64 swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. It took her 53 hours and was her fifth attempt.
On top of being cold and exhausting, there were sharks and poisonous jelly fish. But Guy Ross, who was interviewing her, noted, “It seems like you were more scared of not making it.”
Nyad answered, “Bingo…I think the fear of failure is a stronger motivator than any other fear.”
Then I read an article about Robert Kirkman, the writer of The Walking Dead comics. He said he sets an unrealistic goal each day, like writing 12 pages, and then when he is only able to complete half of that he has a “crushing sense of failure”. Then the next day he works harder to make up for missing the deadline.
So that’s where I’m at today. Working harder to make up for the progress that I didn’t make over the last ten days. And feeling surprisingly unafraid.
Three Things to Do When You’re About to Get Laid Off
If you think you’re going to get laid off soon, there are a few things you can do right now to be better prepared.
Don’t wait until you get the news – you might be upset or angry and forget to take care of important details while you have the chance. And don’t be overconfident. Just because your company may have given workers weeks’ long grace periods in the past, you never know when the policy will change and you’ll be asked to pack up your office and leave in an hour.
- Copy your contacts from your work computer’s address file to your home computer. All those coworkers, vendors and partners whose phone numbers and email addresses you filed on your work PC are part of your professional network. Regardless of where your career goes, keep your “rolodex”. And those personal names and numbers you stored in your work address book for the dentist and the pet sitter – save yourself the steps of having to recreate that information later.
- Print your most recent paystub and your December 31st paystub. You might need the details for mortgages or refinancing, for taxes, or for anything that requires proof of past earnings. Also, when you’re considering new job opportunities you can refer back to your paystub to add up the non-cash components of your total compensation. Employer-matched 401K’s, life/health/disability insurance, gym memberships, bonuses and stock should all be taken into account when it is time to discuss salaries. Being able to talk in detail about the total value of your past compensation package will help you negotiate with confidence.
- Calm down. Yes, facing a layoff can be scary. Career changes are disruptive and one that is not your choice may have extra discomfort because of the uncertainty of what you’ll do next. When you get consumed by your thoughts, just stop. Take a deep breath. You were hired for your last job and you’ll be hired again. Or you’ll start your own business. Or retire. Or take a break and figure out what you really want to do with the next years of your life. You’ll be eligible for unemployment benefits and probably get severance pay, so don’t waste your energy panicking about a financial disaster that probably won’t materialize. This could be the best thing that ever happened to you.
Of course there are more things you can do before you walk out your company’s door for the last time. But for now, take these steps. And then go to work tomorrow knowing you’re a little more prepared. You got this.
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