Is Today the Happiest Day of My Life?

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Can what I feel right now ever be topped? I don’t think that’s possible. Today I witnessed something that I thought wasn’t doable. I was allowed to go back in time thirteen years ago and look at myself on that special night in May 2010.

Of course, it wasn’t me or my body, but then somehow it was. It was me in HER body, feeling what I had felt back then. I saw her smiling the way I had smiled, displaying the same disbelief and the same gratitude that I had shown. I felt her joy. I saw them and in them, I saw us.

Today we were both, the givers and the receivers. I could see it on my husband’s face, he relived it too. He also saw himself on that special night we will never forget.

We always wanted to pay it forward and like so many of us, we tried our best to give back what we thought we owed the universe. Of course, it’s not a competition, it’s more like an honor principle. There is no contract, other than your conscience, no religion or spiritual belief that asks you to do it. It’s more like a moral compass that seems to be guiding you in the right direction.

Thirteen years ago in Memphis, a couple we didn’t know, knocked in the evening on our door. Their horse trailer had been parked in front of our home, full of old furniture and things we needed so desperately. A short time later we helped unload and we all carried everything into our empty home. They gave so generously because they wanted to, and we took it because we needed it and we felt overwhelmed. (I wrote about it in installment #35 of Losing it All “When goodness arrives at night“)

I never understood why they had chosen us. Why did the universe interfere and help? Were we deserving or simply lucky? What made us so special when so many others needed just as much help?

How does it work anyway? How do you find people when you want to help? Or should I say how do you find the right people and the right situation, and how do you know what to give, and how much?

Right now my heart is full of …? I don’t know. Gratitude, joy, love? No, that’s not it.

Yet I feel my heart is overflowing with something. Perhaps it’s a mix of memories and experiences, mixed with a bit of hope and sprinkled with satisfaction. Yes, that’s it. I feel satisfied. My urge to pay it forward has been satisfied -for the moment. The guilt feeling (now look at that, I just typed what I never spoke out loud) has disappeared. Have I felt a bit guilty all this time, because we had received so much help and I always felt like it was too much, or like we didn’t deserve it? Have I been afraid that I couldn’t match the giving with the receiving?

What a silly thought. Yet, here I am. If you could see me now. I am smiling, grinning stupidly, eyes sparkling, beaming inside.

I almost feel like yelling at the universe, “Look, we did it. Our debt to society is paid. We could pay it forward.” Of course, that’s a silly thought too. There has never been a debt, we just make it up in our hearts, and in our minds.

Now let me tell you what happened today.

As most of you know, I restore and upholster old wood furniture and in my line of work, it’s normal to pick up pieces that I find in the ditch or at the curb, abandoned by their previous owners because the furniture have seen better days. Somehow, over time, you collect too many and you run out of space. A while ago, we rented a small storage unit, for all the pieces we thought I might work on -one day.

But, I assume it’s like with the baker who bakes cakes from Monday to Saturday, if you ask him to bake a cake on Sunday on his only day off, he will show you the bird or give you a heartfelt middle-finger-salute. That’s how I feel when it comes to working on furniture in my rare free time.

We kept the storage room for about two years, added on to it, and got rid of some pieces, but kept the promising ones. Perhaps one day I will find the time to create the pieces I see in my mind and I will sell them on Etsy? I have this craziness inside of me, a combination of colors and fabrics, paints and stains that need to become reality.

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By the beginning of November, we got a notification that the rent for the storage unit would be raised in January because somehow it wasn’t high enough already. I have a pain limit moneywise, and when they raised the rent by a whopping $25, I decided it was time to let go.

We made a truck reservation for the last weekend in November, had planned to bring it all to a resale shop close by, but we got busy and had to postpone. Then we both weren’t feeling well. Time flies and we dragged our feet.

And then we got lucky.

A sticky note, posted on the whiteboard at my husband’s work, asked for furniture. A couple had just rented a house and they had nothing but each other and a few kids, a few air mattresses, and a couple of folding chairs. The young man is one of my husband’s coworkers.

Oh, how familiar it sounded. I don’t know why they start over new, it’s not my business to ask or judge, all we heard was someone needed furniture.

And so today we met at our storage unit. We thought we let them pick what they wanted and we would bring the rest to the resale store. We loaded it all up, and half an hour later when we stopped at their house. We were invited in, and just like Susan had inspected our empty home thirteen years ago, we got a tour through an empty house. They shared their story and we understood. Life is not always easy.

We left everything with them. “Look, there are two of them,” the woman said when saw the two wingback chairs I had already redone (and forgotten) and he fell in love with the old chaise.

They acted exactly the way we did back then. Like we had just given them something really valuable. When we looked at the empty walls and told them about all the pictures and artwork we wanted to get rid of, because we ran out of walls a long time ago, their eyes lit up with joy.

Will she sit in the dark tonight like I did back then, wondering how she can make their home look better?

When we left they hugged us. I know how they feel. Been there, done that, lived through it!

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Now storage unit #920 is empty.

I have been downsizing and organizing the Japanese way for almost one year, and many of the things we don’t use anymore are now boxed up, waiting in our garage for spring and the community garage sale. There is so much more we can part with and knowing it will be needed and perhaps cherished by a family is much more we could have asked for.

How much more perfect could it be? Funny how it works sometimes.

To answer my own question, today might not be the happiest day of my life. There have been so many happy days in my life, too many to count and all too special to be compared against each other, but …