----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are you overwhelmed again, mother? So it's beyond decluttering or minimalism or any of those trendy labels. I have been really hyperfocused and stressed beyond over all this stuff that my parents left behind that I had planned to at first keep for myself, and then decide to try and sell. It's multi-fold, the issues. First, I don't want to sell anything. I do not like selling on ebay, I just have had to do something to make ends meet pretty much since I was an adult. I don't remember exactly when we started selling, but I had to call customer service last year about something and they thanked me for selling on ebay for twenty years, so that was weird. I am thankful that we have been able to sell things and it's really helped us out sometimes, but I am so burnt out on it. I never liked it and now I am beginning to hate it. It's work, and I don't do work so well. Between taking photos, measuring items, writing a description, and packaging securely (and sometimes having to deal with the customers directly) it's a real process and it takes a good amount of time. It is exhausting. When I spend a day getting listings up, I am so wiped out usually I can't do anything for the rest of the week. Time is money and money is time and I hate both. Secondly, it's depressing that one of a kind (OOAK) signed art pottery isn't worth spit. Some people sell a ceramic pitcher for 99 cents. Others try to sell them for $40. It's a huge price difference. You have to price it in between and hold onto it and wait for the right collector to finally decide it's right for them. I have moved these things around the country three times now. Once after my parents died to my home in MN. Then from MN to CO. Then from CO back to IA. I am sick of them. The sight of them just stresses me out. I don't even want them around long enough to be able to sell them. I want them gone. Sadly, yesterday, I put it all out for free and no one took any of the art. What they did take were the mass produced votive candle holders and a tobacco jar. NONE of the signed pottery went anywhere, so I wrapped it all up and put it in boxes and in 2 weeks Salvation Army can deal with it. No one (hardly) wants art. I tried to give my paintings away once, and no one wanted any of those, either, not even for free. Thirdly, there's the guilt that I am letting myself and my family down. Selling things is pretty much the only way I have to make money. My $600 from SSDI doesn't go very far anymore. All of this stuff was "free" to me, inherited from my parents, and I am having a hard time getting over the fact that I am letting potential money go away just because I am lazy, or too mentally ill to be able to handle the work it takes to sell it, or whatever the reasons are. I don't want to sell. It's not that much money (relatively). And worrying about it is bad for my anxiety and mood and it puts me in this mental state that I am so poor that I have to scrape and save every single penny that I can get together. That I have to work really hard to make a few coins because I can't hold down a "regular" job. I think of my friend K and how he had zero income. All the money he got was from dumpster diving and selling it on craigslist and working and reselling old bikes when he could, and occasionally selling drugs. His home was totally hoarded out with what was practically garbage and he kept going out all the time and diving and hustling when he had to just to scrape enough together to pay his $50 a month rent and buy his drugs. He had pretty much nothing of value except his bike and his art (that he just gave away, never sold). He got all his food for free and his clothes for free and he got most of his art supplies from the dumpster (unless I gave him something). And he was always working. He was working all the time, looking for things all the time, getting stressed out all the time, just to get a few coins. The amount of energy he put into the amount of money he got was disproportionate and I felt really bad for him. Sometimes he accepted help, usually he didn't. And I worry that if I don't take advantage of this "easy" sales then I might regret it when things get worse. I don't want to end up like my friend, on the street, doing what you have to do because you're too fucking nuts to hold a regular job. Being an artist in a society that does not value art is difficult. Being mentally ill in a society that degrades and abuses the sick sometimes is just too much. Being a mentally ill artist is just shit. I am literally sick and tired of worrying about selling all this stuff. I would like to get to a point where I barely sell anything. I would like to just be allowed to be crazy and poor, but OK with being crazy and poor. I don't want to constantly be worried about money or how I'm going to make money. With the new Fed guidelines about taxes and online sales, it's barely worth it anymore, anyway. For every two coins I make, I'll have to give one up to Uncle Sam. Really, they are just making my decisions easy for me. If I lose my disability over this, it's going to be bad. Lastly, I feel weird not keeping this stuff for myself. I did for awhile. I had all the art pottery on a shelf on display in Roch and it was pretty. I felt like I was keeping part of my parents' collection going, but in a more sane way. Even in Denver I tried to line the top cabinets with the pottery. It felt really important to me for some reason. Now, I just feel like it's part of their hoard. Like it's their hoard seeping into my life. I don't really like things that have no use and that I have to maintain and dust and be careful with. I'm not a careful person, at all. I am kind of like the opposite of that. We have all metal dishes because I have been known to freak out and throw all the plates and cups at people or at the wall. I used to like to go to the thrift store and the old ceramic dishes were usually on my list of things to look at. They were pretty, but I know myself and I know that I shouldn't have them. I'm older now, and I don't think I'm going to go throwing art pottery around, but I also don't want to have to take care of it, basically. Hey, I'm Bipolar, that's just an aspect of it. I suppose that's shocking to some people. They don't call us crazy for no reason. I have had to work this out in my head. It's really been overwhelming me. I can't sit in the mindset of lack. I can't sit and worry about money or the future. I can't keep feeling guilty for not being well enough to make more money. I can't keep doing things I really don't like to do. I can't let guilt from dead people make me keep things I do not want to keep. I'm looking forward to Salvation Army picking all this up. I wish it were sooner. I thought of asking a brother to give me a ride so I could drop off, but I don't want to bother them. I also have 3 boxes of books I want to sell to Half Price Book store, so I will need a ride then. I still have a ton of things that need to be sold and sorted and sold. Books and Hallmark Christmas Ornaments and Star Trek Plates and some Antique statues and weird misc things. But the pottery is going to go away soon. I kept about 3 pitchers to use to rotate for my fake flower arrangements that I make every few months. That's it. 2:38 PM - Monday, Aug. 15, 2022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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