This weekend I bit the proverbial bullet and tackled my closet.
I hadn’t cleaned my closet in 5 years. It doesn’t seen to bad until you consider that when we moved, I simply transferred the hangers from one house to the other. Some of my clothes were so old, they could’ve gotten their own driver licenses. Over the years, my side of closet had become a bit postapocalyptic, with stacks of folded clothes forming small towers, sweatpants in random places, various size labels on the floor, and drawers stuffed with bras which I will never wear.
Finally the situation reached a critical point, so I got some large garbage bags for donated and thrown away clothes and went to work. The plan was that if it’s stained, too small, too ugly, or falling apart, it went into one of the bags. It took roughly 5 hours and now I have questions. So many questions.
Questions like what is this shirt? When did I buy this shirt? Was I suffering from an ocular migraine when I bought it because this has to be one of the ugliest shirts in existence?
This shirt is half as old as my children. How long was I planning on keeping it?
Why are so many of my shirts terracotta-colored? I hate terracotta.
Why do I have so many shirts with horizontal stripes? Not only they are not flattering, I don’t really care for stripes.
Why do I own two identical shirts with horizontal terracotta stripes? What is going on here?
How and where did I buy a sack-shaped, shimmering gold metallic shirt that is two sizes too big and has a collar encrusted with shiny rhinestones? I would never wear that in a million years. Did I just have a sudden, irresistible urge to impersonate a giant Ferrero Roche chocolate? Because with my figure, that’s exactly what I would look like. How did this get into my closet? How?
Why do I own so many long-sleeved shirts? I live in Texas. I get to wear long-sleeved shirts exactly 30 days out of a year, if that. Why do I have so many soft, warm sweatshirts? Did I forget that we have to run AC in winter? Maybe it’s just wishful thinking?
Why do I own a very thick, retina-burning shade of magenta, too-small sweatshirt that says Austin on it? Did I forget where I live? Perhaps I just thought it would be lovely to advertise Austin to my neighbors, all of whom react to the word “Austin” in exactly the same way, by wincing and going, “Ugh, traffic.”
Why do I own so many sweatpants? Did I expect a sweatpants shortage? Did I confuse sweatpants with flour during the pandemic? I love sweatpants, but this is wildly excessive.
Why do I own so many leggings and why do some of them look like they were designed by someone at the heights of their acid trip? I don’t like leggings. I wore leggings like twice in the last year. I will have to wear them more often now because I have them, so I should get my money’s worth.
Why is there a collector’s copy of Small Magics buried under the stack of T-shirts? Was I hiding it from the robbers? Also why is there a box of Sharpie fine tip markers in roughly the same vicinity? Was I planning to hold a signing session in our closet?
How many bras does one woman need? Let me rephrase that, how many bras that don’t fit does one woman need?
In conclusion, I have made several resolutions for myself.
One, I will never buy a T-shirt from Tee Fury no matter what kind of cuteness is printed on it. They are all too thick and the fit is not flattering on me. They all end up in the back of the closet never to be worn.
Two, buying cheap sweatpants is not a good way to deal with stress, no matter what life throws at you.
And three, I’m forbidden to purchase additional T-shirts unless I’m willing to surrender one of the T-shirts I already own. It has to be like an ancient sacrifice. I must ascend the ziggurat via a staircase flanked by burning torches, carrying the sacrificial T-shirt on my outstretched arms and ritualistically deposit it into the donate pile while a gaggle of priests chants to themselves, “Let it go, let it go, let it go…”
Here is a quick trick for things on hangers. The next time you are in your bedroom, take a minute to turn all of your hangers so that the open part of the hook is to the front. and put all of the things you normally wear closest to where you open the closet door and reach in. then stack everything behind that. Special occasion things go to the far end and out of season things go in front of that.
If you wear it, the next time it goes into the closet the hanger is positioned the normal way, with the open part facing the back wall, and it goes nearest your closet opening ( where ever you reach for clothes first). keep placing clothes toward the front that have been used and had their hangers turned.
Give it a few weeks and you will see all of the clothes you haven’t worn at all.
(Your out of season clothes, having been separated out at the beginning, will be easy to be brought to the front en mass when you do the spring/fall transfer.)
I live in Florida, so the main difference is the colors in my shirts and jeans, capris and shorts,and a few long sleeved shirts. But even so, by the end of summer, I’m so tired of my pastels and capris and shorts that I tuck them to the back, out of sight for a couple of months.
When you do the season swap, take a minute to see what you don’t like, or is too worn-out or ill-fitting, and remove it from the closet forever.
Arrange your shoes likewise. If you ever find, before you leave the house that they are too uncomfortable to wear, don’t ever let them back into your closet again!
Think of your closet as your treasure chest. Your things need to prove their worth in order to be worthy of taking up space there.
i’ve done this with the hangers! its quite helpful having a visual showing at the end of the season or year of exactly what you wore and what you didn’t.
*knocked off chair by giggles*
*exhales* I’m not alone
Re: Sweatpants.
Let me mention 2 words – – cashmere sweatpants. Yep, they exist.
A friend of mine’s daughter works in a really high-end store and was given a pair as a reward for good sales. Friend got a pair and was living in them during Covid lockdown (and she lives in Dallas). For Christmas 2021, I got pairs for all the men and women in my family and I found them on sale.
(FYI- There is a soap you can use that doesn’t required you to rinse them out.)
Sooooo comfy! CASHMERE SWEATPANTS!
I’m also about to do another closet purge. Want me to send you some like new tshirts that I barely wore because I have too many? Then you don’t have to spend money on them and can continue collecting them. ???? Like, I don’t look great in rhubarb/burgundy… why do I have 4 items in that color? These are definitely questions we need to ask ourselves every once in a while.
LOL, I totally understand The Closet issues. Same here.
But, fwiw, if your bras are in good shape and clean they can be donated to “I Support the Girls” which provides feminine supplies and bras to women and girls in need.
When I moved from California to Oregon about 8 months ago I did the same thing. I got rid of the very very large contractor black garbage bags full of clothes and still when I got here to Oregon And I started going through All the stuff I packed to bring with me I was astounded at how much I still had left. I found stuff that I don’t even remember having or Ever wearing. So now I have to do some more weeding of clothes and shoes Because I have shoes that are still in their boxes that have never been worn And why do I need them I have no idea. So I agree with you I don’t need any more clothes, Bras or underwear
Thank goodness I’m not the only one who looks at their wardrobe content with shock, dismay and confusion. I have clothes that span three sizes…. Just in case, and that includes bras, but it seems wrong to get rid of them. I even found some with labels still attached that I’m ashamed to admit ????
I didn’t read through all the comments. I used to buy from terfury but their men’s shirts are very rough. I prefer ript, shirt woot, and the yetee. Don’t give up cute fandom shirts. Just buy better ones! Lol (says the person that for sure has way way too many)
Ahaha !! When reading about closet tidying became the best part of my day !!
Congrats! You did an amazing job! Be PROUD:)
That sentence (and the accompanying image in my head) absolutely killed me „ Did I just have a sudden, irresistible urge to impersonate a giant Ferrero Roche chocolate?“
yes!! I think they multiply at night…
I laughed so hard… because I can relate. And my closet-cleaning wasn’t half so thorough.
My husband and I have had the buy one get rid of one rule for several years now. I still have an excess of t-shirts.
You didn’t mention a pile of clothes you really like and are very practical, yet no longer fit. I have some that I keep in the everlasting hope they will fit next summer ????
“How many bras does one woman need? Let me rephrase that, how many bras that don’t fit does one woman need?” — I feel seen!
One of the ways I have dealt with unhappy events is by keeping hold of things. I have trouble letting go of stuff on good days, but bad life events makes this exponentially worse. After a bad family break up, (not so) temporary move, storage, and final move into a much smaller place, punctuated by wildfires, pandemic, and loss of family members, I am just fortifying myself to deal with my current piles and boxes. This post and the comments are a very timely encouragement to let the stuff go!
for years i had a pile of white shirts with stains that had to be removed. which never happened. i had to stop buying white because they attracted either grease or tomatoes stains. Also i look terrible in yellow, but it’s such a pretty color, whenever i go clothes shopping my mantra is “stay away from the yellow”. i feel your pain. i had much luck with “thank you for your service, good bye” i picked up from marie kondo. whew that and my sock drawer looks great!!
I turn all of my hangers backwards in the closet. If at the end of 6 months that hanger is still backwards I get rid of it. If I didn’t wear it in 6 months, I probably never will.
I’ve recently gotten into Project 333 (check the book by Courtney Carver out from your library). You attack your closet every season/3 months, and designate 33 items of clothing that you LOOOVE and will wear. Surprising me, 33 items of clothing is more than enough. It encourages me to let the stuff I don’t love and the stuff that doesn’t make the cut goes to my local Buy Nothing group. And if I ever need to leave quickly due to an unexpected world cruise or a zombie apocalypse , I just grab the 33 hangers and run for it!
I did a quick check of my wardrobe last month and I had 75 pairs of black office work trousers. In two sizes. How??? Why???
I have a friend that forbade me to buy Tshirts. It’s the only thing my eyes see when I go shopping and at some point I didn’t have anything nice to wear like tops, etc …. She accompanied me to shopping and helped me to find something different. It was a hard job for both of us, but it was worth it.
Thanks Ana!
LOL! Loved this, and I needed this spark of humor today. Thank you! (also thank you for the inspiration to go through my closets!)
Lol that was hilarious and sadly exactly how my closet cleaning looks like. Things disappear, some show up and I always ask myself what was I thinking.
Thanks for the laugh
Ha,ha,ha, you didn’t know that when you turn off the closet light and shut the door, the clothes start breeding in the dark and that is where the heinous, ugly and repugnant clothes come from.
Don’t drink and shop, girl. I tell you. You make bad choices at 2 am, two thirds of the way through a bottle of chardonnay, scrolling through the Soft Surroundings 70% off sale. I just got an order in and I pulled out the most god awful hideous topper. I paid forty dollars for the pleasure of owning the ugliest single piece of clothing I have ever laid eyes on. And then I pulled out the next one. I went blind for a second. Sheesh. I’d be embarrassed to give them away. I guess I could take them to Goodwill. Some little old blind lady who lives alone might be able to use them.
And why do I still have maternity dresses when my youngest child is in college?
I’ve found the easiest way to clean my closet is to let my son’s girlfriend rummage in it. Vintage!
Now we know the source of Curran’s habit of considering ancient t-shirts that are falling apart “still wearable”.
any possibility some of the surprise clothing belongs to the kids and got mixed in with yours?
“How many bras does one woman need? Let me rephrase that, how many bras that don’t fit does one woman need?”
well if they made bras that fit better, we wouldn’t end up with so many poorly fitting bras!
i quit buying leggings years ago because they have no pockets. that i’m an adult and “just because i spent money on it doesn’t mean i have to cling to a mistake.” i decided all my pants are now required to have pockets. if they have no pockets, i’m not wasting my money on them. and i can actually say with confidence that i own NO pants without pockets. now if only all my dresses had pockets too…
i also have a tshirt addiction. i am especially fond of snarky smart-ass tshirts. i have been collecting my old tshirts since high school and have signed up for a memory tshirt quilt class in march so they will FINALLY get sewn together.
+1 to “no pants without pockets,” except that I do keep leggings to wear under other, semi-dressy things when it gets cold, or even under outdoor work clothes if it’s in-between and serious insulation is overkill.
And also “no” to pants with inadequate pockets. Not all of us can carry purses on the job. Currently I buy only from Duluth, but if other vendors ever put real, functional pockets back in their pants I will happily buy from them once again. I lived in Lees and Levis as a kid/young adult, and I really miss those pants.
Most of my leggings have pocket – even if they often get worn under dresses. (Of course, I’m tall, so there are things that are sold as dresses that are really short on me…)
I found a type I liked, and ordered a second pair… and Amazon sent me six. *shrug* I gave one or two away, but I am well supplied with leggings.
Check out “Free the Girls” for donating gently used bras
This post was the best! A little stress relief in the middle of a long day of travel 🙂
I do this at the end of every year. What didn’t I wear all year? What is too big or too small? Do I have any hope of every losing enough weight to like it again? It can be crazy.
Yes! I love the give-a-clothing-to-get-a-clothing rule! I’ve done it for years and it’s been super helpful.
I laughed so much. Still laughing. Thank you!
OMG I feel so much better about my closet now. This all sounds so familiar.
In case you are interested in donating you bras: https://www.freethegirls.org/
Great post!
Worth all the laughs!
Bwahaha, truly lol post, way to do the deep dive, but doesn’t it feel awesome?!
Oh, I feel your pain. I devoted/resolved/was forced to spend at least 30 minutes a day (I could quit early if I could prove I had removed 30 ITEMS from my closet) clearing out the black hole which is my closet.
Result: I lasted 4 days, sent 150 shirts/pants/shorts to the charity shop, threw out 2 lawn and lead bags of clothing which I couldn’t even bear to have anyone else see, before my will broke.
I STILL have more than 100 shirts hanging in my closet. I couldn’t muster the courage to even go to the back wall where all my shoes go to die.
And I might have felt worse about myself after the “organization” than when I couldn’t hang another thing in there because you could squish the hangers any closer together.
Resolutions … just a bad idea.
Just FYI, there is an excellent use for t-shirts you’re no longer going to wear. I had a bunch, as did my wife. Old favorites that were getting worn out. Newer ones with sayings on them I liked but they didn’t fit comfortably etc.
My wife is a quilter. She made us both our own t-shirt quilts out of our old shirts. We went through our respective pile and picked out a specific number of the ones we weren’t (or just couldn’t) wear anymore and she made them into quilts!
I wager there are any number of quilters as addicted to your novels as we are who would be happy to help out. I count my wife among them. 🙂
If you haven’t tossed or donated those shirts yet. Even if you have, keep it in mind for the next closet crisis! 😀
Thank you not just for the closet adventure but also the humor and feeling that I’m not alone in my struggles. ????
I started last month in the pantry when I noticed an out of date item. I ended up emptying the entire cabinet, cleaning it out and using new organizing methods to keep better track.
The next week was the medicine cabinet. (That was traumatizing). Then came the spices and looking up what the shelf life is supposed to be.
The closet and dressers are next but I took this week off and I gifted myself with a little space for new teas I want to try now that I have space and an electric kettle for my sewing room. I suspect I’ll be in there a lot more as go through the clothes.
I’m actually looking forward visualizing the ritual stair climb and song singing in my brain. It won’t feel like a chore now, just a leveling up adventure! ????
Lol
I went thru my closet about a month ago. I know a person whose church gives clothes, etc. to “people under the bridge” [ people who never go to shelters]. I would rather have them have the clothes, etc.. I took 3 huge bags to him.
This was the best ????????????
I laughed so much! I am a clothes hoarder, I publicly admit it. My mom is a seamstress and I have dresses she made me when I was 20…. I am now 47 and no matter what I tell myself, they will no longer fit…. Never mind skirts that I’ve been holding on to.
I was contemplating the closet with a weary eye, but you gave me the courage to take a deep breath and plunge in there!!
Chanting:
I must let it go, I will let it go (and what you said for the Tees go for the bras, for each bought another must go ???? ???? ???? )
Isn’t it great,Laura, when you have a system like the one I referenced above?
It’s so easy to keep up up date that you never have the burden of a total overhauler ever again!
Every 6-8 months when I’m cleaning the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and drawers I ruthlessly toss out of date, old , unused and mostly use up stuff and reorganize. There are so many gadgets that seem like a good idea when bought, but get used maybe once. All of this stuff turns into junk that just gets in the way and you’re fighting with it every day. It wastes so much time and energy!
Have you ever noticed that you use the same dishes, utensils, and cookware almost every day? And how little of the total it actually takes up?
I loved that. I felt your pain…and snorted over it. I try to do a clean out every summer.
I read the best way to manage an overactive closet is to turn the clothes hangers backwards and when you use something turn the hanger around correctly. At the end of the year everything that’s still backwards goes.
I hear you with the bras. I’m the same way. I will buy lovely new bras and then look at my collection of ratty, stretched out, missing a hook, underwire trying to escape, turns-out-it-was-the-wrong-cup-size bras and be like, “yeah better keep those!” You know, just in case there’s an emergency that calls for me to have saggy, unflattering uniboob.
bra’s are a pita at the best of time. some days you fit one other times your falling out the bottom. some only look good in certain shirts and some you like and think if i loose some boobage it will be perfect….and then bra’s are made in different places so the same make of bra may not fit in another color so you have to get fitted every time you go get another one ( you should really) and this is why you horde them cause nobody wants to do that .
I love the tapas innkeeper book. Will you publish after it’s done? I just bought TBATE via yen press and it looks great ( through barns and noble). So once the online series is done, you can likely publish it like they did. Please please please.
Oooh, if that is an option, yes please!!!
This post is inspirational. I’ve been strategizing about how to attack my closet. The current plant involves a couple of costco plastic storage boxes…
I bought a bunch of things when I moved here. And then I got the antibiotic resistant pneumonia (and subsequent fluoroquinolone toxicity). And then the pandemic… I’m up a couple of sizes, and while I’m getting more of my energy back and the weight is starting to subside, I don’t know where I’ll end up. Meanwhile, I’ve been having more and more things made for me, out of linen, and to the right darn length. (I only have off the rack manufacturer that reliably makes pants long enough. And then there’s getting anything to fit around my chest. Not to mention adequate pockets.) (Also, I see my move towards linen as just more proof that I am A Woman of a Certain Age.)
So it’s time for a thinning. I will donate some. And some things that I really like will go into storage because the last time I gained weight because of health stuff, it did come off (and left me the same weight, if not the same shape, I was at 16…) But I try to look forward more than back on these things.
I’d laugh more if my own closet woes didn’t mirror yours so closely:) Not the sweatpants so much, but I have mounds of gorgeous sweaters which I have not been able to wear because menopause. Even moving towards said garments seems to bring on a wave of hot flashes that leave me one drippy mess. I don’t want to get rid of said sweaters, because cashmere. Plus menopause is supposed to end & I live in a cold climate where sweaters are normal wear six months of the year. Problem is, I’ve been having said hot flashes since 2008. Not a joke. For real. Oy!
Since 2012 for me. I finally got rid of all my turtlenecks this year. On the positive side, the intensity decreased enough over the past couple years that I can wear long-sleeved tees again. There are still two wool crewnecks in my closet that have sentimental value. Anything else long-sleeved that doesn’t have a full-zip front is gone. Buttons take way too long. If only that sentence were a risqué observation.
I am so hoping that hot flashes end. I am hot from the neck up, freezing everywhere else, and still don’t know what to wear.