Cleaning out the closet, and the mental trash

I'm a packrat.

I have mad skills at acquiring stuff and not letting go.

So it all began a few months ago. I live in a small apartment - which I'm thankful for. If I had a lot of space I would fill it. All. full. of. stuff. So the small apartment keeps me at a sane level of items, not to mention it's less to clean. :-)

My apartment used to off use of a "storage room". Well a few months ago I got a letter from management stating that use of the storage room was no longer allowed and that all tenants must move their things out of storage.

Enter : pairing down by necessity.

In spite of having 1 massive closet ,2 small closets and 2 chests of drawers - I still needed to switch out clothes seasonally. So essentially - in addition to 3 closets, 2 chests of drawers - I also had somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 large (20gallon) sized trash bags full of seasonal clothes. that would get switched out by spring/fall.

That is an entirely insane amount of clothes for any 1 person to have.

SO I went through it.

A lot of clothes were things that hadn't fit in 2 years or more.

A lot of it was "I'll wear that when..."

A lot of it was "I like that, but I don't like it on me"

And I got rid of things mercilessly. Everything I could bear to - because the alternative was to store my seasonal clothes in the middle of my living room otherwise.

I got rid of 7 (20 gallon) trash bags worth of clothes.

The results were amazing. Now I can actually see what I own in clothes. Now I know that whatever I pull out of a drawer or out of my closet - will fit and be something that I like to wear, something that makes me feel good.

Not only do I not miss any of the clothes or the struggle of finding an outfit that looks good on me - it has been really self confidence boosting to not have go through clothes that don't look good or feel good on me. That has been the big surprise.

As I think back on all the times that I tried to stuff myself into too tight of clothes or unflattering clothes - all of those struggles really did bring me down. We have this weird tendency to blame ourselves when clothes don't fit or don't look good on us. And that is no reason to have low self esteem. It's simply a fact. Not everything is going to look flattering on everyone. I have that problem as a plus sized person, but so do my small sized friends. No one is immune.

As for where to get rid of the items? I would like to give a big shout out to my beautiful friend Amethyst Haze - who organized a "clothing swap". That's where some of my clothing went and where I got some new to me pieces as well. The rules? Take what you no longer want and leave it for other people. Take what you do want that other people have brought. At the end - the left overs were donated.

As I've continued thinning out my clothes - I have also donated to the donation bins in the area, Savers, and to anyone I know having a garage sale.

There are multiple places to get rid of clothing that no longer serves you where it won't go to waste.

Give it a try. In all liklihood you won't miss the clothes or the self doubts :-)