Cleaning Out My Closet

Much to my mother’s chagrin, I’ve turned her the guest room into a walk-in closet.  Well, to be more precise, I’ve turned the bed into a dumping ground for all of my clothes.  See this photo? 

Play I Spy!  Who can find the teddy bears?
Who sees the Oprah-inspired Vision Board?

95% of my clothes are piled on the bed.  The 5% that isn’t on the bed is in the dirty clothes pile on my bedroom floor which is so obviously where dirty clothes are supposed to go, right?   

I don’t want you to think I’ve gotten lazy and just started piling my clothes on top of the bed.  Nope.  I did this on purpose.  See, I’m decluttering.  Again.  Those of you who follow my status updates on Facebook know I declutter with some regularity.  Um, okay, you know that I attempt to declutter with some regularity.  Look, I just have a lot of crap.  And I don’t like to get rid of my crap.  I actually have trouble letting go of my crap.  Some days I feel like I’m just one tragedy away from showing up on an episode of Hoarders.

Anyway, back to my clothes.  I have a lot of clothes.  Which is surprising because I never have anything to wear.  Or I just wear the same things over and over and over.  I read somewhere that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time.  So, decluttering experts say that you can get rid of 80% of your clothes. 

That’s what I’m trying to do. 

But it’s so hard!  I don’t want to get rid of anything!

See that pile of clothes on the corner of the bed in the front of the bed?  That’s a whole pile of graphic tee-shirts.  Now, I have quite a history with graphic tee-shirts.  Especially oversized ones.  I used to go to school wearing shirts like that.  With rolled up sleeves, of course, to make me look cool.  Somewhere in that pile is the shirt that I got from the Roots store in Toronto that I bought so I could pretend that I was an Olympic athlete (I also have an Olympic beret that I wear during the winter when I pretend to be a winter Olympian).   Also, in that pile is a shirt that I bought from the JC Penney’s junior department three years ago that proclaims “I’m a tank top, flip-flop kinda girl.”  I’ve never worn that shirt but I strongly identify with that sentiment and so I definitely don’t want to get rid of it.  Now, I’m much cooler than I was in high school so I don’t wear many graphic tees with rolled up sleeves anymore but I keep them because the hoarder responsible voice in my head says that I might need them for painting.  Not that I do a lot of painting. 

I’ve got a few dress shirts somewhere on the bed.  They’re classics from Ann Taylor Loft that I doubt will ever go out of style.  Problem is, I got fat outgrew them.  But I don’t want to get rid of them because what if I manage to lose the 25 pounds that I’ve gained since I bought them (look, it’s been a rough couple of years) and I can comfortably wear them again one day?  It could happen! 

There’s a dress pile too.  Until last year, I didn’t really wear dresses but I certainly have a lot of dresses!  Like the red knit dress with a cowl neck that I wore twice – both occasions around ten years ago.  But I looked awesome in that dress.  Or at least that’s what everyone told me.  Anyway, it’s been hanging in the back of my closet since I moved into my house.  Before that it hung in the back of my closet in my apartment.  And, well, before that, it hung in the back of my closet in my bedroom at my parents’ house.  I know I’ll probably never fit into wear it again.  But I don’t want to get rid of it because I like looking at it.  When I can get to the back of my closet. 

I don’t even want to get started on the pants.  I’ve got pants in three different sizes.  The size I grew out of.  The size I prefer because I hate tight clothes.  And the size that my fashion-forward friends told me that I really am.  I keep them all because, well, I might need them all someday. 

See, it’s just so difficult!  Now, I do have two small bags ready to go to the Salvation Army but I think I can - no, I need to - get rid of more.  So.  Any advice?  How do you know when it’s time to let go and get rid of your clothes?

Maybe I'll just keep the clothes on the bed until I wear each article of clothing at least once!  Who needs a guest bed anyway? 

Clutterbug

I’ve always had a lot of stuff.  Partly because I’m a bit of collector, partly because I don’t like throwing anything away, and partly because I think I might’ve been a teensy bit spoiled when I was little.  (In my defense, I will say that while I may have been spoiled…I don’t think I was a spoiled brat.)   

Growing up, my small bedroom was always cluttered with dolls, books, bags, stuffed animals, clothes, dollhouses, newts, doll cradles, and, at one time, a guinea pig.  It dawned on me recently that my bedroom wasn’t small.  It was just overfilled with crap stuff.

I never outgrew that tendency. 

My cubicle, my car, and certain rooms in my house are happy habitats for the cousin of the stink bug – the clutterbug.  Even rooms that don’t appear cluttered with stuff…are.  After hosting friends for pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner last year, one friend said he didn’t think my house was cluttered at all.  That’s ‘cause I didn’t let anyone look in the closets or under the beds.

Far and away, my biggest problem is paper.  I guess that’s to be expected considering the line of work that I’m in.  I rarely throw any paper away and when I do, I agonize over it.  Now, I’m not talking about the junk mail that ends up in the recycling bin as soon as it comes into the house.  No, I’m talking about credit card statements, receipts, greeting cards, instruction manuals, Chinese fortune cookie fortunes, and on and on.  I’m better than I used to be…when I was younger, I would save ticket stubs from the movies.  I’m pretty sure I still have my ticket from when I saw “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

I just got a new iron because my old one died and I cannot go unpressed.  The iron came with an instruction manual.  Now, unless it’s a top of the line Rowenta, most irons are gonna work the same way they’ve worked since we stopped heating them with hot coals.  But me?  I need to save the instruction manual just in case I forget how to turn it on one morning. 

I like to save receipts – not for tax purposes.  No.  I like to save them just in case I want to put them in a scrapbook one day.  Because it’s important to remember that I paid $4.56 for ice cream on that vacation in Bar Harbor in 2003. 

Speaking of scrapbooks.  I have 19 scrapbooks in progress.  And by “in progress,” I mean, I bought a bunch of scrapbooking stuff that’s stored in a big container and the pictures are scattered about in photo boxes, envelopes, or wicker baskets.  I have a basket filled with all my pictures, tickets, and programs from when I went to the Summer Olympics.  In 1996.  We just passed the 15 year anniversary.  Do you think I should get working on that scrapbook soon?

This clutterbug is going to try to bring a little order to her chaos.  On Monday night, I went to a great talk about controlling clutter.  The speaker was Andrew Mellen, a professional organizer who’s been featured in a bunch of magazines and wrote a book called “Unstuff Your Life.”  He gave a lot of great tips that I’m going to try to put into practice this weekend as I start to unstuff my life.    

 I’ll let you know how I do.  I’m starting with my receipts.