I keep buying more boxes, more bins, more hangers. I’ve never considered myself much of a clothes hog or fashion victim, and yet here I am, with more clothes than I had closet. It accumulated like weeds in an untended garden. A sweater here, a pair of jeans there. My closet was filled with dusty relics of my undergraduate.
My mom used to buy us clothes that were a size too big. That way, we could grow into them and wear them for years. It’s become a habit—and I couldn’t bear to part with clothes that still fit. After all, I’m on a budget now. But I find that more and more, I wear the same t-shirt. The same tank top. The same sandals.
I need to get rid of some clothes.
I shift through the boxes and the bins, layers and layers of clothes like pages of a story. Jeans when I had no curves. My “serious” button-downs and slacks. Sweaters I could hide in. For a moment, I thought I’d find me at the bottom of the bin, under the grays and blacks and the whites. I secretly feared that after I threw away those layers, I would find nothing under it at all.
There was nothing. The clothes ended up in big black plastic bag, all packaged for the Goodwill. My closet is clean. I find that with all this space, I can start all over again. And this time, I won’t have to grow into anything.
