April 11, 2013 - Once a Fortnight

The 70’s Chandelier

My friend Linda delighted in her first house. She loved everything about it except for one thing. She couldn’t stand the light fixture over the dining room table. A large modern chandelier, it was an angular affair with glass squares hanging in horizontal layers of different lengths, kind of like a mobile. Linda didn’t care for it. She prefers the farmhouse look—old quilts, rough-hewn furniture, lots of wood. So, from the start, this unsymmetrical chrome and glass fixture bugged her every time she passed through the room on her way to the kitchen. It would have to go.

But someone had obviously spent a lot of money on it—it was a big piece. So Linda had a plan. To figure out what it was worth, she would have it appraised. She’d photograph it. Then she’d work on how to get the most money for it, perhaps on eBay. Once it sold, she would be able to afford the hand-made wrought-iron candleholder she’d always loved.

Linda told me about this plan every time I went up-country to visit, but it never seemed to get off the ground. Months passed. Then years. Eight years! Eight years of life’s other demands winning out over the daily annoyance of the chandelier. Eight years of unhappiness with its hanging over the family at dinnertime. Eight years of emotional weight—daily negative energy.

Then one morning, something shifted. Linda climbed onto a chair, reached up across the dining room table and started taking the glass pieces off the fixture, one by one. In minutes they lay in a glittering heap. The chandelier was gone. She piled the pieces into a box, and by noon, it was at the Good Will.

She called me, euphoric: “Someone’s going to be so happy when they see this! I can’t believe how long I lived with it. It meant nothing to me, but I know someone else will love it. They’ll get a good deal, besides. I can’t believe how happy I feel.”

Sometimes, objects around us can acquire an emotional heaviness. Like old beliefs and attitudes that don’t work for us anymore, we can also hold onto belongings for reasons that do not serve us. Letting go of them can feel good. What in your home is taking up emotional space? What have you been holding onto, not out of love and fondness, but some other agenda? How would it feel to let go of these things? What’s it like to imagine someone else treasuring them?

The Spring Fling beckons! Click here for more information on the Spring Fling. Things you’re ready to let go of today may bring pleasure tomorrow to someone else, maybe to you, as well. Take a look around. The more of us who participate and the more donations we offer…the merrier for all.

Betsy Tabor is UUCR’s Intern Minister.