What You Get for $11

I sold my clothes at Buffalo Exchange yesterday.

They gave me $11.03 for it all. The leather pants, the Club Monaco belt, the Calvin Klein dress, the orange Aldo pumps...and all the rest of it. Funny, isn't it?

Hilarious, actually. I didn't really care. I didn't even stay to watch the girl go through the box, which I've learned can be embarrassing (who wants to see someone hold up your favorite shirt, then toss it over their shoulder to the pile for GoodWill?)

But it wasn't really about avoiding embarrassment. I would have been happy to stand there and watch, taking whatever fashion judgement that girl with purple hair and an excess of sequins chose to throw at me.

Is this growth? Maturity, set in after 7.5 months of retail abstinence?

Maybe. Anyway, I went across the street instead to see Kelly, who was at the Grace Heart & Company, working her monthly Saturday.

Folks were setting up all down the street for the White Linen Night in the Heights, some fun local festival that involved the production of a lot of music and kettlecorn (at least at that point in the afternoon).

I went inside to see Kelly, purveyor of the little box of paper goods that had really brought me down there in the first place--the wedding party invites. And wow, they are awesome. That girl did a ridiculously good job. (And my sister, too!) The final product is just perfect.

I know, this is a lot of back story for a trip to Buffalo. But I'm not stopping. There will be a purpose.

Kelly's mom was just leaving the shop as I was arriving, and it was just...great to see her. Beautiful, healthy, and energetic, she threw me a huge smile, squealed over my engagement ring, and struck a bit of a pose when I complimented her new haircut. She looked better than I'd ever seen her.

Then Kelly showed me a little corner of the shop displaying some particularly fun antique beer paraphernalia. Everything was clearly very lovingly displayed...old Coors signs and bottle openers and beer taps that had for years been hidden away in dusty boxes, all now out in the open for people to admire and buy.

I complimented her work, telling her how cool it was to see everything displayed so well. She just smiled and quietly said, "Yeah, it would have made him really happy."

Then we just gabbed for a few minutes in the back of the shop, watching couples, old ladies, and young kids wander the shop. A few people stopped to look at some of the beer steins, and it was back to work for Kelly and out the door for me.

The street was beginning to fill, the music getting louder, and the light getting really cool as it does in Houston when there's a distant summer thunderstorm at 5pm. I didn't stay for the party, and it didn't matter. I was going home lighter, having unloaded that big box of clothes that I don't think I'll ever miss.

I got to bring home a smaller box anyway, full of the result of a lot of hard work by some very talented people in my life.

And that hour in the antique store was almost like something scripted, maybe even poetic: a backdrop to highlight the kinds of changes, both tragic and beautiful, that can happen in life. Illness, death, acceptance, healing...there's so much to endure and experience. Life really does just keep moving forward. And I had the opportunity to really appreciate it yesterday while giggling with a good buddy in the back of an antique shop in The Heights.

So guess what, Buffalo Exchange? You could have had those clothes for nothing. I got more than what I came for.