Disposer’s Remorse

I definitely felt regret, on a couple of occasions it even escalated to panic. I am still exploring why I get those strong feelings. Last summer I went through storage boxes and came across my old Sigg water bottle. I got it when I was 17 and in high school. It has a 0.7-liter volume and a sparkly dark red coating. The lid is light gray and solid smooth hard plastic. I am 43 now and still have it. It is all dented up, and the paint is chipped. Back then people didn’t even know about Sigg water bottles yet. At airports, I was either complimented for it, or it was mistaken for a camping stove’s gas bottle.

I remember the first chip. I dropped it on the stone floor at an American airport on the wait to see my boyfriend. It was so loud everyone turned their heads. The dent was small but deep and caused the first crack of the paint. I was devastated and used nail polish to prevent the paint from peeling off.

It received the second big dent during an overcrowded train ride during my first year of med school. It was in my backpack that fell on the hard train floor as I hadn’t reserved a seat and was cramped in the train’s hallway next to the toilet. I didn’t even have enough room to sit down. Because the bottle was trapped in my pack, a heavy anatomy book fell on it, while I was studying Latin for med students.

Some train rides later, this time with seat reservations, and probably in an ICE from the Frankfurt Airport back to my town, I spotted a man in his thirties kitty-corner across the aisle. I was fascinated: He had all the backpacker gear, but it was actually being used, fulfilling its designed purpose. Yet, he didn’t seem like the touristy backpacker type, because there was a serious experienced air about him. He also wrote in a weathered leather journal by hand. After some time, he unpacked his lunch, eating something I didn’t know out of reused aluminum foil. Then he put a large (much larger than mine) Sigg water bottle on his little fold-out train table. His bottle was completely dented up, and almost all the paint was gone. There was just enough left, to let you know it must have been blue when it came out of the factory. From that moment on, I didn’t mind, if my bottle lost paint. I scratched off the nail polish with my fingernails and the red coating that wanted to follow along.

This bottle has been everywhere with me since I was 17. To every city, I have ever moved to, and every town I have ever lived in. It even came with me on my hike alone down into the Grand Canyon. When I got pregnant with our first child, a friend put a bug in my head about water bottles and BPA and all, I started to use it to bring water along for our dog.

That day last summer, when I came across it again after 5 years of storage, I thought: Well, I am not using it anymore, I’ll just do it like Marie Kondo, I thank it for all its 25! years of use, and let it go. So I added it to the donate pile, which I later dropped off at our Reuse center.

I came home and immediately regretted it. I felt a panic rise in me that I used to feel when I had made a mistake, I knew I couldn’t rectify. For example, when you have a terrible fight with a loved one, and stupid things come out of your mouth in rage. But what has been said, has been said and the relationship is altered forever.

I talked to my husband about my panic, who couldn’t understand, of course. I even cried, and then finally went back all the way to town the next day to ask the hardworking donation receivers, if my beloved bottle was still there. One of them even climbed into a giant container for me to check. He found one, and my heart jumped. But it was only another one just like it. Although 20 years younger with a university logo. I cried again on the way home, trying to get a hold of myself. This was not rational behavior after all. I should be spending this time with my children for Christ sake.

I came home and went to sit at my desk. There I noticed a magazine file organizer I wanted to repurpose, and inside… my water bottle.

I think the reason why I got so upset was that it seemed to me the only object I kept from my late teenage years and twenties that bares truly good memories and resembles toughness, my toughness. I traveled alone more than with company. I overcame inhibitions and fears in so many ways, and that red water container was a witness during all of it. Should I ever have my own home office and bookshelf, I want it to be one of the few decoration pieces. And adding on to last week’s post: It has so many of my stories engraved on it. Good ones. That I am yet to write down.

This also happened with two chairs, I gave to a friend. After a couple of years and an embarrassing email, it turned out, she was happy to give them back, because she could still smell the vinyl of those chairs from the 60s, and it drove her nuts.

There are also some other objects that still spook around in my mind once in a while. But I don’t have any memories attached to them, at least no good ones. But I do think about the people who might have made them. I didn’t through them away. I know someone will buy and truly treasure them. And I remind myself how much more free and easier my life is without them.

A couple of days ago, I saw a student read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. A book we read for our neighborhood book club this summer. I truly enjoyed it but gave my signed copy to a friend. Because I am minimalizing, and probably won’t read it again. Seeing it being read the other day, reminded me, of what I learned from it about myself, and how important it would be to have it on my (future) bookshelf for my kids to discover. So I wrote another very embarrassing email. And John replied: „Hey Grit – this is no problem at all. And it’s not “stupid” at all. You don’t need to feel uneasy about either asking for the book back or canceling the request. I’ve experienced this plenty of times – the opposite of Buyer’s Remorse, a kind of Disposer’s Remorse.“