My complicated history with pennies
Stories about counting them, keeping them, and throwing them away...
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Hi friend,
A couple weeks ago, I did a small spring declutter around the Lighthouse. I say small, because there wasn’t much to get rid of, considering I’ve only been in the UK for two years. A few items of clothing that no longer fit. Some books added to the pile of others I wanted to donate. The journals I’d dreamt about ripping up for ages (gone!). Altogether, it wasn’t much—but the energy behind it felt big. I was tired of looking at these things and feeling “bad” about them in some way. I wanted them out of my house. I wanted to free up whatever amount of space they were occupying in my mind. I wanted to feel lighter and more free, in general.
This isn’t the first declutter I’ve done, and won’t be the last. I don’t buy or bring much into my home, but the reality is that almost nothing lasts forever. Even the most mindful consumer will have to let some things go, at various points throughout their life. Decluttering can serve many purposes. You might do it as part of a general tidy up. You might do it to make space for something else (known or unknown at the time). You might do it when you feel fed up or anxious in your own home. You might also do it to regain a sense of agency or control in your life. That last one certainly resonates for me.
The first time I can remember doing a proper declutter, I was around the age of 14. A lot was happening for me at this time, especially with my mental health. (Fourteen is also when I started drinking.) I don’t remember exactly what sparked my decision to declutter, but I remember walking around my bedroom, grabbing anything I didn’t want, and throwing it straight into the garbage can. I remember feeling incredible after. Like I was riding the kind of high you can only experience after you’ve made a huge decision that was right for you—and nobody else. The high quickly ended, when my parents figured out what I had done.
See, most of what I’d thrown out was stuff that had been bought for me over the years, but I didn’t actually like or want. Clothes, CDs, books, etc. It wasn’t meant to be an act of rebellion or a sign of disrespect. These were just things I wouldn’t have bought, and didn’t feel like “me,” and I didn’t want them. (I have a long history of feeling as though many gifts I received were bought for the wrong reasons, which is probably why receiving gifts is NOT a love language for me.) My parents delivered a little bit of the “we spent good money on that” talk. But mostly, they were upset about what they’d found at the bottom of the bag.
Pennies. A lot of them.
“You can’t throw money in the garbage, Caitlin. Why would you do that!?”
I didn’t have a good answer. I don’t know why I threw them out. And I did “know better,” as I was told I should have. I’d grown up rolling coins for my mom. I knew 50 pennies went into one roll and that made 50 cents, then two rolls made $1, and so on. I knew pennies were real money. I just… didn’t care about these ones, for some reason. It was like they didn’t count. As I was decluttering, I had found them sprinkled all throughout the drawers of an old desk of my dad’s, and thought they looked dirty. I’ve also always thought that pennies smell like the taste of blood. I didn’t want these dirty coins that smelled like the taste of blood. It was as simple as that for me. Or, was it?