Selling What Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Two older women get together for coffee.

It’s a business meeting but the two women have known each other for a long time, probably more than thirty years, so they are friends in a way, business friends at least. They have memories of time spent together, deep discussions in cars traveling to and from meetings. One older woman tears up recalling an ancient conversation. It’s about children and adoption and choices.

Somehow, the two older women talk about jewelry they’ve sold in the past. People don’t usually sell jewelry unless they want to get rid of the jewelry because they got rid of the person who gave it to them or they need the money or both.

A very long time ago, I sold a gold pin that had four emeralds and rubies in a row. It was given to me by a married man who had no business giving someone not his wife such an expensive piece of jewelry. He also gave me a tiny carved elephant, yes, carved of ivory, I suspect, with a wee ruby on its head. I didn’t sell that. Don’t ask me why.

I also sold my high school class ring. That was a mistake. I bought groceries from my jewelry sale. I especially remember the gallon of milk. It seemed a meager prize.

“You never get very much money when you sell jewelry,” I said. And the other woman agreed.

The two women returned to the topics at hand – politics and programs, plans and advocacy. Misunderstandings, clarifications, strategies. Finding the threads to stitch a problem into a solution, using our shared history of hocking our jewelry as common ground.

It’s what two older women who get together for coffee do.

___________________

Photo by Susan Holt Simpson on Unsplash