Stuff Sharers

I love to shop.  I actually think I am quite talented at it too!  I pride myself on finding new and interesting brands, cute just released things, shops hardly anyone knows about yet.

I shop because I enjoy it.  I shop because I love the thrill of the purchase - that feeling as you head home with something shiny and new in a fresh and crisp bag.

I shop as a hobby, I shop as a stress release, I shop online and I shop in person.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't shop to a ridiculous level.   I just like doing it, the way some people enjoy bush walking.

The flip side of enjoying shopping is I also love organising and neatness.  I love having everything in it's place and a place for everything.  If I go to bed at night and the house is out of control untidy, I don't sleep well.  Do a 15 minute clean up before bed and I will sleep like a log.

The combined effect of all of this is I also love decluttering.  I love moving things on when they reach the end of their useful time, so they can make way for something I need now.

This used to mean that every few weeks I would have a few bags lined up at the door to go to the local charity bin, they'd sit there for a while.  Then they'd travel around in the boot of the car for a couple of more weeks before being dropped at Vinnie's.  I'd always be a bit anxious about whether my bags of goodies were wanted there or was some older lady I would run into at mass muttering under her breath about my junk they had to send to the tip.

That was until this past week when I was introduced to the a local "stuff sharers" facebook group.

Set up by a friend about a year ago, it is decluttering gold.  With 214 members, living in about a 25km radius of central Bendigo it is a resource for sharing information and goods available "free to a good home".  It looks like nearly 400 items have been exchanged this way - the "gifted" posts a picture of the item, it shows up in the group members facebook feeds.  First person to say they want it get it.  The giver and the receiver then make collection arrangements - often the collection arrangements being I'll leave it at X nominated place at my house for you to come and collect.

With my cycle on buying and collecting I don't have a house brimming with things I have horded.  But a clean of the boys wardrobes identified some shoes that never fitted at the right time, there were toys they had outgrown, things I had purchased as gifts and never got around to posting.  It's pretty easy to take a photo on the ipad, upload the photo and see if anyone wants it.

I was hooked.  I started with a couple of things that had been hanging around for a while but it was the reaction of the community of stuff sharers that kept me going.  24 items I have posted in about a week, most of them in one Sunday afternoon clean up.  I have been blown away by the reaction.  I thought I was just dumping things out there.  I was not at all expecting how thrilled someone can be when they get something that otherwise would have been binned.  How exciting it is to hear the story behind why someone wants something.

Some of the philosophy of the stuff sharers sight was also about reducing waste and landfill.  It feels good to know things can move on and that we can be a little less disposable.

No surprise that some of this is pretty emotional.

I was fairly detached from our cot now as Raff had long graduated from it and Thomasina never made it out of a bassinet, so it was never a cot that she slept in.

However, I was still a bit concerned about getting rid of it as it was a bit of a symbol of what she never did.  I didn't want it ending up on a rubbish pile somewhere.  So to know it is now going to a new baby who will now have a beautiful cot when the parents were worried about what they could afford gives me so much joy.  It has turned what could be a very sad event into something that warms my heart.

Lots of things I have passed on through stuff sharers has some connection to Miss T.  Whether it be toys that the boys have outgrown that she would have been playing with now.  Or things I purchased when she was alive that are now tinged with sadness, even things purchased long before that remind me of the hopes and dreams.

There's even a bit where I feel I need to clean and put things in order physically in order to make sure my thoughts and sadness are clean and orderly as well.

If I had just thrown those things to the tip or in the charity bin, it would have just been sad.  Instead, I have the delight of seeing people enjoy those things, find uses for them, adding some brightness to both our days.  The pleasure of making new connections.

So, for those of you who are part of stuff sharers, thank you.  To Nicole, thank you for setting it up.  To others, I recommend setting up or joining such a group - another wonderful part of life in this village.