What I Left Behind: The Clock My Grandfather Built

Believe it or not, the Birchbox is back.  

I’m going to choose not to believe it because honestly? I can’t begin to tell you how much crap I accumulated in my NYC bathroom between 2011 and 2015. So. Much. Crap.  

The number of times my box actually contained anything good? That number is more than one, but definitely less than 5. 

Which means that every month for 4 years, I was being given a box full of stuff I didn’t want. And shoving it into a drawer in my bathroom. Until that drawer got full and I dumped it all into a box that I shoved into my closet.  

And then I decided to move to Thailand and I offered the box to a very cosmetically-oriented friend who quite properly said, “Um, no. Thanks.” I am 100% on board with the philosophy that nobody has to accept anything they didn’t register for at Williams Sonoma.  

Except how do you say no when someone you love offers you a piece of their heart wrapped up in a clock that is taller than you?


One winter, my grandfather spent seven billion hours in the garage building a grandfather clock out of a giant box full of parts that somehow were all supposed to fit together and work. It was seriously the crowning achievement of all his tinkering and fooling around and “inventing things” that were weird and often battery-operated. And for reasons I will never understand, nobody clapped when they saw it.  

Except me.

My grandmother allowed it to stand in the foyer where it chimed every 15 minutes and counted out the hours until they downsized, and the movers broke something, and the clock never tick-tocked again. When my grandparents passed, nobody wanted the clock.  

Except me.

Which made no sense because I lived in a tiny apartment in NYC and where was I even going to put this clock?  

And also? It made perfect sense. Because that clock represented all of my childhood memories and all of the love I had for my grandfather.

So, I made space for it.  


Several years later, that space didn’t exist anymore. I was moving abroad and shipping a grandfather clock that didn’t even work across the ocean was not something I wanted to do.  

So I tried to sell it. No takers.

So I tried to give it away for free. Nobody inquired.

So I tried to donate it to one of the charity shops in my neighborhood. Not interested.

Leaving me with two options:  

I take it with me. 

Or.
 
Gawd, I can barely say this even though it’s been over a decade.

I could put it on the curb in front of my apartment building and hope someone loving and kind wandered by to take it before all the neighborhood dogs peed all over my broken heart.

Well, since this was never going to be a personal item that fit under the seat in front of me, what I was going to have to do was pretty clear. But I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t have feelings about it.  

The main feeling was that I wasn’t sure I was going to be physically or emotionally able to actually put it on the curb. And then walk away.

And yet.

Sometimes you have to let go of things you love because you need to move forward.  

It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the memories or abandoning the love that brought these things into your life. It doesn’t mean you’re being cold-hearted or selfish or rude.  

It means there’s a whole life out there you want to go discover. And it is not easy to eat, pray, or love with a grandfather clock strapped to your back.


In the end, I didn’t have to find out whether I was capable of curbing my clock. On the day I was moving out, my Sophie’s Choice became a Ram in the Thicket situation, and I was able to sell my clock to someone who was going to love it and care for it and not let any doggie fluids anywhere near it. And all of that makes me happy when I think about my grandfather’s clock.

And I do think of it.

Sometimes I really miss it.

But I don’t regret leaving it behind.

Not for a minute.  

Missing something is about the thing. Regretting something is about the decision. 

And the decision to move across an ocean without the clock my grandfather built was made with my eyes wide open, knowing what I was giving up. But also knowing why.

This is the part of moving abroad that everyone does but nobody warns you about. 

Leaving the Birchbox samples you never wanted is easy. It's the stuff that holds your history, the stuff that holds your people, the stuff that holds your heart that takes everything you have.

Nobody moves abroad because they're excited to get rid of their stuff.

They move because they're chasing something bigger: a different life. One they have to build themselves, out of a giant box of parts that are somehow all supposed to fit together and work. 

Which, not for nothing, is probably the most grandfather-clock thing I could've ever done.

The good news is: there’s room in a new life for a lot of things.

And if you’re missing your cosmetic samples….the Birchbox is back!


Your friend who can’t stop herself from browsing the sample-size aisle at Sephora,
Vivian