Episode 145: The 12 Days of Slow Gifting (part two), with Maggie Greene

Welcome to Clotheshorse, the podcast for people who love fruitcake.

Seriously, though, fruitcake is GOOD: dried fruit, nuts, maybe a nice apricot glaze? What’s not to love!

I’m your host Amanda, and this is episode 145. This is part two of a two about Slow Gifting, so you haven’t listened to the first half…go do that now. We’ll just sit here and wait for you. Oh you did it? Okay, now we can move along…

Halloween Queen and fellow fruitcake lover Maggie Greene is back to finish our conversation as we move through the 12 Days of Slow Gifting. We will be talking about our worst gifts ever and why gift cards can be a little scammy. We’ll be sharing our suggestions for homemade gifts, gifts that aren’t stuff, and more motivation and inspiration for having conversations with your family about revisiting gifting traditions.

Before we jump back into that conversation, I have one audio essay from a small business in our community. I want to give you all a trigger warning before this one starts…this essay, from Jessica of Vagabond Vintage, does talk about suicide and mental health. And I am going to talk about that more after her essay play, So if that isn’t something you want to expose yourself to today (which I totally understand), then I would recommend fast forwarding to my conversation with Maggie.

Okay, I’ll admit that’s not the greatest fanfare for introducing an audio essay, so I’ll add this: Jessica is a wonderful person, she has super cute cats (I know because she sent me photos) and I know she is working hard for a better world. I’m glad to have her as a member of our community and I’m beyond grateful and honored that she recognizes Clotheshorse and our community as a safe space for being honest, telling our truths.

Now, let’s take a listen.

Once again…thank you Jessica for being brave enough to be vulnerable with all of us. I know I appreciate it (understatement) and I know her thoughts will move and motivate all of you.

And to be very vulnerable with all of you: Jessica’s essay really brought me back to my own very visceral moment of waking up in the intensive care unit after a suicide attempt in my 20s. It’s so hard to convey the 1000s of thoughts that race through your brain when you wake up like that. It starts with “where am I?, why am I? What happened?” then you remember how you ended up there and you realize “I WANT TO BE ALIVE.” A few weeks ago, someone in my extended family said something like “people who overdose on drugs or try to kill themselves should just be left to die because that’s what they want.” And it really, really messed me up to hear that. Because it’s just not true.

I used to be ashamed to admit to people that I have bipolar disorder. Like, they would never take me or my feelings seriously ever again. And to be fair, in some relationships, when I have admitted that I have bipolar disorder, I have automatically lost every argument from that point on because everything I felt was just “mental illness” and not real, deeply considered feelings. Don’t ever discount the feelings of someone with a longterm mental illness, because chances are high that they have spent a lot of time in therapy thinking about them. Or at least, analyzing them on their own when their medication is going okay. Questioning every one of their feelings just as much as everyone else around them is.

But let me tell you…when my bipolar disorder has been at its worst (both mania and depression), I have often felt as if I’m watching this person other than myself control what I am doing. Like I’m definitely feeling the chaos of mania, the despair of depression, but the person talking to other people, overspending, crying, drinking, using drugs, not getting out of bed…that’s someone else that is also somehow me. The same goes with attempts at ending my own life. Like I knew that I was actively doing that, but yet it also felt like someone else was because I simultaneously didn’t want to feel terrible any more, but I also wanted to live.

The past few years have been really hard because I’ve been managing a mental illness while also dealing with all of the other pain, loss, fear, and upheaval that the world has thrown to all of us. It’s a lot! I will never be the person who says (or believes) that “all you need is some good hard work to get yourself out of this.” But I will say that finding those projects, communities, missions that make me feel excited, included, motivated…that’s what has helped me cope with all of it. I remember several people saying to me–and I’ll preface this by saying that I know that they were trying to show care and appreciation–but they would say to me “you don’t have to work so hard on Clotheshorse.” And what I wanted to respond was “No, I need this, I need this project, this work, this mission to keep myself going.”

What I am saying here, is that I understand what Jessica is saying when she says that her business keeps her going, helps her feeling hopeful and connected. And I know that some of you that are listening to that feel the same way. Once again, another great reason to support small businesses: for many of us, we do this work because it is an integral part of our lives. It’s beyond just making a paycheck, it’s a mission, a stabilizer, a way to connect with others, and most importantly: we really care about what we are doing. We love what we are doing. There’s that meme that’s been going around on instagram for a few years that is along the lines of “everytime you purchase something from a small business, the owner does a little dance.” And yes, that’s true…but more importantly, every time you support a small business, you give them the chance to keep doing something that is so important to them. It’s hard to imagine saying that about Amazon or Target or Urban Outfitters, where your purchase doesn’t matter if it’s not stacked with a million more to make a topline number that will pay dividends to shareholders.

Your impact when you shop small is so much bigger than the money. It’s so much bigger than whatever you bought in the first place. It supports people. It supports your community. And these are not things to be dismissed. They matter. They matter so much. I can tell you–if none of you were listening to Clotheshorse or interacting with me on Instagram–I would be, well, I probably would have quit by now–but I also would have lost something that brings so much meaning and motivation to my life. So thank you. And thank you to Jessica for submitting such a powerful audio essay!

Okay, let’s shift gears (in like, an extreme way) and get back into my conversation with Maggie!

Thanks again to Maggie for spending so much time with me! I’m just so grateful that Instagram brought us together. I think by now you all know I’m super sensitive and super sentimental, but every guest I have had on the show has made an impact on me and I think about them regularly. Maggie is probably a super extreme version of that because I feel like we have 100 inside jokes that I laugh about when I’m out in the world alone. And I definitely think of her every time I see something Raggedy Anne related (as an antique mall aficionado, this happens a lot). Maggie is just such a treasure of a human being. We are already working on some ideas for a new episode for February, so I promise she will be back. You can find Maggie on Instagram as @greenstylemags and check out all of the things she does at maggiegreenestyle.com

All right…I am recording this while I should be packing to leave for San Francisco in a few hours, so I have to keep this ending short and really wrap things up! I hope that you are already starting to get a lot of ideas about how you can incorporate slow gifting into your life, not just for the next few weeks, but also year round. We give gifts all the time! I love giving gifts and it’s not something I ever want to quit doing. But I do love doing it in a different, more thoughtful, more meaningful way. It has actually made the very enjoyable experience of giving gifts…even more lovely and wonderful! Please follow along with the entire slow gifting journey–I’m making tons of content around this for the next few weeks–on instagram. And I’ll look forward to seeing and hearing what all of you are doing this year as part of the slow gifting revolution!