Coming out of the Closet

by Donna MacMeans

A good friend recently took me on a tour of her renovated house. When the kids

moved out, she changed things the way she'd always dreamed they could be. She expanded the kitchen, changed the light fixtures and paint, and turned one entire bedroom into her very own clothes closet, complete with a handbag wardrobe. My practical self thought this rather extreme...but then another part of me thought this a splendid idea.

You see - this is always an awkward time of year...cold in the mornings, warming up to shorts temps by afternoon. Attempting to dress for the day is similar to planning a day long strip-tease. The layers come off as the sun rises, only to reverse the process as it sets.

Undoubtedly, in a few weeks I'll be able to pack up all the long jeans and winter clothes in big plastic tubs, and cart them off to the basement to summer alongside the tubs of Christmas decorations. When Ohio experienced record high temps earlier in the month, I brought up one of the summer tubs so I could at least have access to short sleeve tops. Now my closet and drawers are crammed with winter clothing and my bedroom floor cluttered with summer clothes. I have an incredible urge to toss everything into a bag for Goodwill just so I can once again see the carpet.

But I won't.

I get attached to clothes. Memories reside in the patterns and textures. I still have some outfits that have been too small for something like twenty years now. I keep thinking that if I lose enough weight...I'll wear them again. Maybe monster shoulder pads will come back in style. Maybe I could just remove the pads and the jacket will still fit correctly. (Yeah, right)

Years ago I cranked out some nice maternity dresses for the office on my sewing machine because you just couldn't find professional looking maternity clothes in the early 80s. I KNOW I won't wear those again, yet they're still in my back closet. I have a fisherman-knit sweater that my mother handknit for me. She misread the pattern and kept increasing the sleeve width. The sleeves bell out at the elbow before reducing to the wrist. I'm not sure I ever wore that sweater - it's not exactly flattering - but I just can't part with it. It's still in the back closet.

Then there are the shirts, skirts, and dresses that I bought because I loved the print pattern, or the color, or the event to which I wore it a long time ago. My closet is jammed full of clothes I no longer wear, and weaning out items to donate to charity is painful.

My writing is sometimes like that. I'll write passages that on reflection I know I'll never use. I can only cut them from my manuscript, by moving them to another "closet," a file called "edit cuts." Simply discarding the passages would be too painful. My manuscript is improved by the reduction and I suspect my closets would be too.

So how can I do it? How can I rid myself of the old memories invested in the clothes? How do you do it? Am I the only one that holds on to these things long past their wearability expiration date? Maybe I should just turn my son's bedroom into a massive closet - what do you think?