On Monday, I sold a 25-year-old piece of myself. It wasn’t hard, really. We are moving and we are packing, and, though he was referring to writing, I’m trying to apply (supposedly) Faulkner’s exhortation to kill your darlings to my packing process. What have I been carrying around all these years that I no longer need?

More than I should, and killing your darlings is hard. When I was 19 or 20 years old, my then-boyfriend and I went to a music store in Columbus, Ohio and I bought my first acoustic guitar—a Washburn. My then-boyfriend was a phenomenal guitar player and was going to teach me how to play. I already owned an electric guitar that my mom and step-dad had bought me for Christmas five years earlier. The fact that I couldn’t play it yet, after owning it for a few years, should have been a clue to how this process was going to go.

I’ve always wanted to be naturally—preternaturally—good at something. I wanted to pick up the guitar, practice a few times and then be magnificent. Weren’t those the stories I read about Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and others? They picked up their instrument and were magical at playing it almost immediately. Of course now I understand that nothing comes that easily. Presenting it that way in their origin stories made them more mythic, but they worked at it. It may come easier to some than others, but anyone who masters a skill does so by working hard. Not by wishing it so. I took lessons from my boyfriend; I could play a few lines of various songs—Rocky Raccoon was probably my best, though I could also play a bit of Wish You Were Here.

I took the guitar to college, to my newspaper internships, to my first apartment. Then-boyfriend and I broke up. I took the guitar to my first full-time photojournalism job in South Florida. I took it with me to Illinois when my husband and I moved there. For a while, I gave it to my step-daughter and she took it a few places, too. Maybe to her college dorm? I don’t think she was any better at playing than I. I found it in my possession again and brought it to western Massachusetts for my first job in New England and then to the home we bought in Vermont. Now we are moving again. [We’ve moved five times since 2010. Twice out of rental homes and into purchased homes, and now out of a purchased home and into a purchased home. We’re ready for roots.]

I really want to downsize this time. We have boxes in the garage that we haven’t opened since we relocated here. Clearly, we can do without whatever is in those boxes. I have journals from when I was 15. I have birthday cards from when I was eight. [Okay. I’m keeping some of those.] Honestly, I don’t look at much of this stuff at all. I need to let it go.

“What about the guitar?” my spouse asked while surveying all the items from the attic he had brought down. I looked at the beat up old case that was already in used condition when the guy at the guitar shop threw it in as part of my purchase. Beatles stickers; Grateful Dead stickers, Jimi Hendrix stickers, quotes from Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson written on it. ”Yeah, it’s probably time to let it go,” I said

I always liked the idea behind the quote, it’s never too late to be what you might have been. I appreciated the sense of optimism…that age doesn’t have to dictate who you become. Then I read a blog from someone I knew in grad school who said she hated the quote because of course there comes a time when it’s too late to be what you might have been. Like if you wanted to be a gymnast, or an Olympian, or a dancer on Broadway. I would add being a Jimi-Hendrix-level guitar player. But maybe there are octogenarians proving me wrong. [I hope so. If there are, I’m sure I’ll find them on TikTok.]

A friend of mine posted photos of the guitar to Switchboard at the college where I used to work and within an hour or so, a student had reached out to buy it. We planned a time to meet and a location. I emptied out all the papers from the case, including notes and instructions in my then-boyfriend’s script. 25 years have lapsed. Astonishing.

I met the student in a common location on campus and was struck by his gentleness. Such a nice kid. Probably my age when I first bought the guitar. Do guitars get better with age? For some reason I had always thought so. Have I gotten better with age? I hope so.

He opened the case and touched the strings of the guitar. “It looks great,” he said. He Venmo’d the money to me and thanked me. “Have fun,” I said as I turned back toward my car. That simple. I had finally let go of an object that symbolized so much to me. Youth, hope, goals, dreams—a future where you can be anything. I still believe in that last part, but in a much more sedate and nuanced way than I did when I was 19 and 20.

And I kept my two clarinets, so maybe I can be more like the John Coltrane of clarinet playing! Is it too late?