Cleaning Closets

In honor of Thanksgiving, or perhaps because I can't stand that stuffed feeling that goes with Thanksgiving, or maybe, just because we're here and it's a thing to do, I am emptying my closet.  Well, not completely emptying, but doing a pretty major purge of the clothes that have been with me for 20-plus years and the "give as gifts" things that are no longer appropriate to give to anyone we know.  All that, and some odds and ends along the way.

It is a scary process. (To be honest, a lot of stuff has been bagged so far, but nothing has actually left the apartment!). It means eliminating parts of my past, acknowledging that things change enough over 20 years, that I likely don't fit into many of those clothes (three children later), and that, even if I do, they will not be my friends in a job search or a new job.
Acknowledging that my children are growing up, and that their friends are now too old to receive early readers and picture books as gifts.

In a time when I am avoiding spending money, it definitely feels weird to get rid of "perfectly good" things that might be useful and might help us to avoid spending money.  But are they actually BEING useful?  Well, no, not really, unless you count their role in making it impossible for me to get to the things in my closet that would actually BE useful.

Flash forward to the end of the day.  Closet not perfect, but way better.  And the bags-- they've almost all gone out, either to the trash chute or to the big charity bin downstairs, where you drop stuff through a trap door and gulp as you realize your stuff is really gone.

There IS a sense of accomplishment--a closet at least temporarily more usable.  A triumph of me over stuff, which, I suppose, is how it should be.  And, I would like to think, people out in the world benefitting from my things.

Tomorrow, or next week, I won't likely even remember what I got rid of.  I will have moved on to the here and now.  And, in the end, my memories are not about seeing the clothes I wore 20 years ago, or every piece of paper I ever wrote on.  They are about how I felt and the people I knew, and those things don't need to clutter the shelves in my closets.

So, whether I continue my Turkey Day cleaning for the rest of the weekend or move on to other activities, I feel as though I've taken a big step into the here and now.  Not to mention a giant leap toward a clean closet.