Group I: Things that cause homesickness when I’m already home

• Books containing brave girls (Sara, Lyra, Hermione, Coraline, Violet, Katniss, Gretel, Wendy) and, unfortunately, nothing more than unrealistic expectations
• My beloved silver moon locket that I can no longer wear because of a tiny, folded, pencil-written note inside: “think of me when you’re with him”
• The leather-bound pocket-sized journal I kept under my pillow for six months, which only ever received angry scribbling in the middle of the night
• A memory box mostly filled with birthday cards and valentine’s day cards. Between two meaningless notes is a love letter I pretend is sacred and yet I keep it lost in an overstuffed box that is only opened every few years
• A small chest locked with a golden key, given to me by my aunt who believes that jewelry is treasure, while the real treasure is what I can hide between the felt lining
• Leaves pressed into pages that I forgot to properly label and are now just perennial memories of any place in any time
• A withered pink magnolia captured underneath an antique bell jar. It waits to be revived by magic, water, or sunlight, but will probably not be. Seeds gather beneath its petals, and perhaps they will live on to bloom again
• A painting I rescued from an antique store that has no artist’s signature, in which boats look like birds and skies look like seas
• My hand-painted red wagon filled with gardening tools. It sits outside all year round, waiting to be used to find something buried deep within the earth
• Every snow globe lining my windowsills, because I was a little disappointed to find out that none of them held real snow

Items in Group I may only be traded for priceless family heirlooms, enchanted objects, or unused treasure maps leading to rarities and/or oddities. No amount of money will be considered.

Group II: Things meant for another lifetime

• Books containing resourceful orphans (Molly, Annie, Frodo, Lyra, Claus, Sunny, Violet, David, Jane, Mowgli, Harry, Peter, Oliver, Madeline) that when read carefully, also contain directions on how to run away
• A drawer full of novelty t-shirts by every band, movie, and television show I loved, that are much too embarrassing to wear in real life
• The large chest filled with leotards, ballet slippers, elbow pads, knee pads, shin guards, and fencing gear (all too small) in the back of my closet, as if I’d ever go back to any of it
• A detailed log of every possible mermaid sighting since 1800, from when I mistook cryptozoology for marine biology. Also includes convincing evidence of water-to-land human evolution
• A crate full of expensive wine purchased legally, but irrationally
• Fairytale: A True Story, which sits among my video collection, masquerading as a documentary in childhood hopefulness, but is in fact, not a true story at all
• Coffee stains on a notebook cover, gifted to me by a coffee addict, but never used
• An illustrated book on pirates and thieves, both historical and fictional, which only taught me to be wary of the high seas and little towns with ports
• An unfinished ship-in-a-bottle, with directions and all of the pieces accounted for
• A dried apple made to look like a shrunken head

Items in Group II begin at $100 and will be sold to the highest bidder, no exceptions.

Group III: Things that look better when squinted at from a distance

• Every corked bottle lining my windowsills: sand, beads, rocks, specimens that will lose all meaning if released from their bottles, specimens meant to be looked at but not touched
• Instructional books on calligraphy and
• The fountain pens I paid too much for
• Puka shell necklaces stuffed somewhere in a drawer because they shouldn’t be worn by mainlanders, or really, by anyone
• Jelly bracelets of all different colors, symbolizing reputations no ten-year-old really had
• Livestrong bracelets stacked up without knowing what they actually meant
• Converse that are now caked in mud, and unwearable no matter how cool they may look
• Home-cooked meals that I greedily hoarded as leftovers, but later realized was an impossible amount for one person to eat
• Three plastic shipping containers full of more Christmas decorations than anyone could need, or want. Some string lights may be dead, but could still wrap around multiple trees, easily
• The Game of Life on CD-ROM that made me feel, as a child, like my life was already over
• Full tubes of glitter, for art or for the body, unopened
• A tape deck, bought secondhand when I thought tapes sounded even better than vinyl. They do not
• Three polaroid land cameras found in the garage, because I only need one, and because old things are, for some reason, more sentimental for me than for my parents
• A beautifully upholstered armchair that my father loved, but that my sister allowed her cat to use as a scratching post
• Four pairs of glasses that are no longer my prescription because I didn’t wear them when my parents told me that reading in the dark would ruin my eyes

Items in Group III begin at $10, or best offer.

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