my closet

My medicine has not taken away my energy, it has just redirected it and turned it into a more positive energy.  Where before I would use my extra energy to pace the floors and fret and walk walk walk from one room to the other, picking things up and putting them down again, feeling overwhelmed with things to do and not knowing where to start, now I am able to select a project and really focus and get it done.  Well, okay, not always, but much more than before.

This weekend I had a date with my closet.  I didn’t realize until Saturday when I went looking for my boots what a clusterfuck of chaos my closet has become.  The neighbors were building a fort outside in the snow and I wanted to take Joey out to get in on the action.  I just needed to find my boots.  That I haven’t worn in a year.  I searched around on the floor of my closet, through piles of shoes and stacks of old maternity clothes and more flip-flops than a person with only two feet should be allowed to own at one time, and while I was in there I triggered an avalanche from the top shelf and a pile of my old clothes rained down on me.

I do laundry just about every day, so all my clothes are usually clean, which is why I’ve become so lazy with my outfits.  I have a rotation of about five different outfits I wear all the time, usually fresh from the dryer, so I never really need to go into my closet.  This is good because my closet scares me.  I have things in there from when I was a big huge pregnant girl waddling around with an 8 lb baby sticking out off the front of my body, down to size 4 pre-pregnancy skinny chick jeans so small that I can’t believe I ever got my whole ass into them at once. But when my old sweatshirts and jeans fell down on me, it woke me up to the fact that I have so many choices!  I could have variety in my life!  I have a pretty pink sweater I forgot about that I haven’t worn once this winter!  I should stop eating all the time now because I am not pregnant, my baby is a year old and I need to stop letting my body stay such a run-down wreck!

So on Sunday I was in the mood to tackle the mess.  I went to my room with a big box of trashbags and a dream…by the end of the day, this closet will be clean.  And this time I even remembered to take a picture before I started.

I ended up with three bags full of stuff good enough to donate and two bags of trash.  And my closet is still full.  I was on such a cleaning high, I couldn’t stop with just the closet.  I cleaned out my bureau and my tee shirt hutch too.  Here’s a little secret about me: I love tee shirts and my love borders on obsession, so I have hundreds of them.  I’ve collected so many through the years that they’ve become like a scrapbook of my life.  And that’s why I have a whole piece of furniture in my room devoted to the storage of tee shirts.  I have tee shirts from concerts, from labs I’ve worked in, colleges I’ve attended and not attended.  Tiny tees, oversized tees, logo tees…every tee for every occasion.  And this is how they’re usually organized:

I dragged Eli up to the room to work on the tee shirt hutch with me, because I know I am weak.  I keep even the unflattering tees I never wear because I can’t handle throwing a memory in the trash.  Eli is there to remind me that the Superman tee shirt has the logo that makes your boobs itch, remember?  Or, you said you’d stop wearing your WHORE tee shirt when you were thirty, remember how you swore that?

So we went through everything and I lost a lot of friends.  Thinking about it now that they’re gone, I have some regrets.  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty.  I could’ve cut them up and made something out of them, like a quilt.  But seeing as the last time I tried to sew, and went at a piece of orange burlap with a sewing machine trying to make it into funky curtains with a hem and almost took my own eye out when the needle snapped off and flew up in my face, stabbing me in the cheek, goodwill is probably the best place for my old tees.  And I can’t outsource the work to a pro because it’s not like you can ask you mother-in-law, who creates beautiful quilts full of artistry, to sew your coed naked swim team tee shirt to your collection of college frat party tee shirts, to the W-H-O-R-E shirt up in the center and then add backing and batting and make it pretty, without her thinking her son is married to some kind of SKANK.

But I did find, and keep, my World of Meats tee shirt.

It used to be one of my favorites before I got pregnant and couldn’t wear anything that didn’t stretch around the middle and puff out like a giant tent in the front.  I’d forgotten about it and I found it there all smashed into the back of the hutch with no dignity like a free Weight Watchers shirt.  I wore it today and though it doesn’t fit exactly like it used to, it still feels pretty fine.

Here is the before and after of my closet:

Hmm.  I don’t think the pictures capture the true difference between what a mess my closet was before I started, and how deliciously organized it is now. Looking at them side by side doesn’t look as dramatic as it does when I stand in my room in front of the closet and soak in the neat.  I’ve been wandering into my room all day to make sure everything is still beautiful like I left it and it all wasn’t just something I dreamed.  And I know I’m going to be dragging everyone who walks through my front door this week up to my room to look at my closet.   I bet the UPS man will be impressed with my work.  And maybe on the way to the basement, I’ll take the furnace cleaner guy on a little detour.

Comments

[sherry]

So uh, do you want to come and tackle my closet? It's such a disaster that I could weep just by looking at it.

[Morgan]

I found you through Holidailies and read through your entire archives. I feel like a stalker now, sorry. Excellent job with the cleaning, by the way.