Risser Kaffee Verein

I spent this last month of May closing my storage unit as part of my ongoing mission to cut my monthly expenses and lighten my load in life of “stuff” that I had gathered over the years but didn’t use. It was an odd experience that was every bit as grueling as I had expected, but necessary at this point in my life. It took a month, which at times was like watching my life pass before my eyes, as I went through a sort of moving time capsule of my life, uncovering things I had lost, forgotten, and so on, while determining what to keep, sell, trash, donate, and answering the agonizing “why” for choosing only one of those options for each item. They all had to be out of the storage unit by the end of May, with most of them gone from my life forever.

As I was “grouping” many of the items, I began to discover an embarrassing number coffee related items that I had collected over the years. I enjoyed coffee from every one of them and had great memories associated with each one. They had been scattered and traveled with me everywhere and now, I was looking at them all together in a box and they had to go, now! New, they weren’t cheap, but now used, they weren’t worth much. After all, who wants someone’s used coffee paraphernalia? I finally moved on to this action item and was taking the quick but shameful trash, sunk cost, justification option with them since I was out of time. En route to that option, I impulsively turned in to Goodwill, where I had donated many things of “value”, thinking they might be rejected but it was worth a shot and I would just move on to the trash option. Instead, they were accepted and the thrill the recipients showed and almost disbelief that I was giving away something so nice was more than gratifying to me. They were going to be “treasured” and given new life! That was a very gratifying moment for me. (Of course, I imagined them being used for coffee enjoyment somewhere in all this).

There are many stories of the storage items I owned that included memories I held dear, but it was time to let them go… It was difficult at first but one by one, I passed them on to others in one way or another. In that, I saw the delight they were giving to their new owners as they fulfilled the needs, wants, and desires of their new owners who gave them a new purpose. That was an unexpected reward from all this that I will never forget.