Woman, Clean Thy Closet

I’m taking a break from purging my closet to write this post. A girl needs a break, after all. Since I’ve spent roughly the last two hours purging, I have been reminded of a few things.

• I am an inveterate pack rat. This means not only that I keep things I really should throw out, but also that I keep things in the hopes that I’ll someday use them. Things that people bought me that I’ll never ever wear or use; or things like, um, socks or gloves that have lost their mates, or old T-shirts that I think that I’ll eventually turn into rags or donate to the local animal shelter or something. Freecycle has been a lifesaver, but…
• I am a panty-waist. I keep a lot of things around in the fear that I will eventually go looking for it and then suffer horrible pangs of guilt or sorrow that I gave the thing away. In reality, of course, there’s only one item that I really wish I’d kept in the years I have of giving things away or throwing them out, and that’s a little loden-green vest with suede edging that I got at Loehmann’s with my mom AGES ago. Fifteen years ago, maybe.
• Purging makes me  nostalgic. I feel like I have to call up all of my long-lost friends and have a conversation of some sort.
• Purging results in a bigger mess before the benefits of a more orderly life can be reaped. You should see all of the handbags all over my effing floor. Horrible.
• Purging makes me think of the lifecycle of a product. I have socks and pantyhose from a good five years ago and they’re still all elastic and fine. I haven’t worked in an office for about that long, so what the hell am I doing with pantyhose? And what will happen if I throw them out? Can I depend on them actually degrading and not clogging up a landfill? This is terrible. I will have to see if there’s anything I can actually do with all of these textiles.

Okay. Back to it. Do I really have to throw out this enormous pile of single socks? So sad!!