For years I’ve been thinking about what it means to have an ex-spouse.
Recently I visited several yard sales and I suddenly realized that an ex-spouse was like something you put a price tag on on weekends. Like the various household items that you sell at yard sales, an ex-spouse is something that’s been part of the family but is now obsolete. It’s been used in the family and has also used the owner. (And don’t we feel tired after taking care of our possessions for a long time? We’ve used our possessions, and we’ve been used by them, too.) Now the time has come when both sides feel monotony and decide to hold a yard sale.
The purpose of yard sales is to clean up the mess accumulated over the years.
A yard sale is a process. Not everything goes at the first attempt. When time is up and no more transactions can be made, the owner has to put up with a longer time of being tied with his or her possessions. The owner, however, will try time and again to sell the old stuff until finally there’s a buyer. Great relief is often the feeling accompanying such a success.
From the time the seller conceives the idea of holding a yard sale, mutual resentment develops between the person and the stuff he or she wants to get rid of. But such resentment is not hate. In fact, for a long time, the household items, decorations, books, sheets, furniture, whatever, have been used to such an extent that there is always a tender feeling between the owner and the owned.
The resentment comes not from detesting the stuff that is meant to go, but from the fact that it takes time to get rid of it, and when one attempt fails, the owner cannot just throw it away. This is because it has some value and has to be kept for another try.
This value comes from the tender feelings the owner has towards the owned. Before a thing changes hands, the value that is put on it is purely the one-sided wishful thinking of the owner.
This distinguishes yard sale objects from garbage. No one has any tender feelings towards garbage, which is thrown away immediately. Yard sale objects cling to the owner until a final severing of the tie is reached.
Sometimes, one may regret having sold a particular object at a yard sale. Our feelings towards our ex-spouses are the same. We may regret having let them go. But this regret is often a feeling that is developed when the void left by the ex-spouse has not been filled. Often when one tries to reclaim one’s ex-spouse, he or she finds that what has been let go indeed deserves the treatment. The initial feeling is the most accurate and reliable.
People go to yard sales even when they themselves have lots of stuff to discard. The grass beyond the fence is always greener. The yard sale is a big circulation of used goods. Through this circulation, people develop a sense of community. The situation is much the same as when divorced people come together and find that they share a common language.
Ex-spouses are constantly circulated in the numerous yard sales of life.
Written by: Fang Huzhai
