Things sometimes don't go according to our expectations.
I have dreamed of owning a thriftstore for a long, long time. A thriftstore that would give my life purpose and direction...that would financially support me while also having a reciprocal relationship with the community. A for-profit thriftstore, but one that also served social service agancies, and benefitted my neighbors by giving them a place to find things they need affordably, benefitted local artisans by giving them a place to play or display their works, benefitted the planet by reducing landfill use.
I researched and wrote a 75 page business plan that captured exactly how I could do this.
Through being an addicted, negative, and heartbroken person, I had lost everything in my life that mattered to me. This store was supposed to build a bridge back to my parents, my daughter, my independence, my pride. ..
I decided to turn my life around, and go for it.
Armed with this business idea, I started looking for things people were going to throw away. Having stupidly sold my truck years before, I was on bicycle when I started. I, of course, checked dumpsters, asked people who had things set out in their yards gathering rust, made the 4am circuit ahead of the trashtrucks looking for items people had set curbside for disposal, bothered people who had yardsale leftovers.
It is amazing what people will throw away. Especially in a town with one of the highest socio-economic gaps in the entire nation.
When I found things, I had to get them to the various places I was stashing them...on bike. I did this for six months. I annoyed every friend I had with repeated requests for rides. I walked things like dressers and couches for miles by handtruck...once I roped a large television into a wheelchair I had pushed a half mile just to get to the neighborhood where it had been placed out with a "free" sign on it. To say that people passing me did double takes as I made my way back to where I was staying would be an understatement. (The television worked perfectly, in case you were wondering...)
I crashed my bicycle over and over trying to carry vacuums, and bags of discarded clothing, and rolls of carpet. One time I found a dumpster full of discarded kid's bikes, so I crashed my bike carrying....other bikes. Wheels and legs and pedals and handlebars everywhere. I was a sight to see, I'm sure.
The police came to know me, and had both laughed AT, and WITH me on various occassions-when my feet were hanging over the side of an apartment complex dumpster. Eventually they would just shake their heads at me and wave as they passed by, as they figured out I was perhaps a bit eccentric, but not burglarizing anyone. Or stuck. I cleaned up my messes, and took care not to alarm residents in the middle of the night...which was the best time to treasure (inventory) hunt without being harrassed or repeatedly questioned.
I did this for six months, in every kind of weather. One time, I had seen that a store was discarding some display racks. I rode my bike- in the dark and rain across the Brookings/Harbor bridge in 75 mph gusts of wind. I was repeatedly blown against the railings. But, I got those racks.
People who cared about and supported me starting giving me donations. I had things stashed with every friend I had...garages, backyards, sheds, under eaves and tarps, car trunks...some friends started running when they saw me, fearful I would make their homes look like an episode of Sanford and Son's.
After renting a small storage and having stuffed it so full it became dangerous to even open the door, my friend told me I needed to stop the cycle and just get a commercial building...and get the store in motion.
This made a lot of sense, because was starting to run out of patient friends with garages....but I didn't have start-up money. And I was still scraping every dime to try to pay my friend and former co-worker for the room I rented...and I had been doing this largely through recycling. Again, on bicycle.
The reason I am telling this story is because first, I am posting a bunch of pictures from my store because I am still living in uncertainty in temporary situations....and I have gradually lost photos, computers, cameras, photo albums...and what I still have, I want to archive.
And secondly I AM going to open and operate a successful thriftstore....again...having learned this time from my mistakes. I'm not sure yet exactly how I will get there from where I sit now. But, I will. I thought I had a plan, and it has come apart-in the most painful way I can imagine.
And thirdly, because even though things are turning in very different ways than I had expected, there are amazing and wonderful unexpected things at work. Even if they seem awful in the moment. And this may be the lesson I was meant to learn...I NEED to tell my story. Because there are a lot of assumptions. There is a lot of misinformation.
I NEED to have added my voice, even if no one ever hears it. Because somehow and somewhere...there is going to be another try at Play It Again Jo's.
