Is it just "stuff"?

Re-posted from a different blog:

For some reason, I develop emotional attachments to "stuff" - especially clothing. I try to tell myself, "It's just stuff. If you need a memento to remember the memory, is the memory really worth remembering in the first place?" It is only the fear of seeing myself on an episode of Hoarders that keeps me from holding on to every piece of clothing I have ever owned.

I recently lost 35 pounds, and decided the time had come to go through my closet and root out the stuff that no longer fit. You can imagine my surprise when I found my college "fat jeans" (or as I now call them, "my jeans") sitting so far back in the closet I expected to find a gay man cowering and shouting at me to close the door. 

Here is just a sampling of what I found:

• The summer gown I wore to my brother's Ordination. It made me sad to look at it, because he recently left his ministry. Perhaps I will donate it...but oh, wait, it fits again.

• A Frederick's of Hollywood little black dress that I never had the courage to wear, because the neckline plunges to my waist (it did not look like that in the photo!). Maybe I will put it on eBay...but oh, wait, my step-daughter might want it. 

• My Hugo Boss white silk pantsuit that I only wore once - for my mother's birthday celebration at Waterfire, the year I finished college and could finally afford to take her someplace nice. I always meant to dye it cranberry, to match the chicken glaze stain that the dry cleaner could not remove. That was the first and last time I wore white silk...

• My Karin Stevens teal suede beaded dinner suit, the one I wore to an evening job interview in Buffalo, New York (just like Providence, only colder!). Note to self: When a man asks you on a "dinner interview", don't accept the job he is offering.

• My vintage Bloom County t-shirts!

• Five hat and matching glove sets from the 1980's, sans gloves, as they were all ruined because I wore them on my paper route, along with a set of padded pink Thinsulate gloves that one of my favorite customers bought me. I never had the heart to tell her that they were too bulky for me to move my fingers. Apparently, I never had the heart to get rid of them, either.

• And this:

photo circa last Tuesday

The beret is part of a hat and glove set (now sans gloves!) that I received from my 10th grade Marketing teacher, as a Christmas gift for the teacher-student Secret Santa gift exchange. The scarf is even older, having been purchased in elementary school with my allowance money (because apparently, I had a perfectly good scarf at home and if I wanted it I would have a to use my own money to buy it!).

I know I need to let go of most of this stuff (except for the suits; I love my suits!). I keep telling myself that it's doing nobody any good sitting in my closet, next to the evening gowns that no longer get worn but that I long to wear; that I should donate it all to someone who cannot afford nice stuff; that if I don't, the producers of Hoarders will eventually come calling.......................so maybe I can put off the pain of letting go until that day finally arrives?

I am starting to think it is about more than just clothes.

KJM
1.18.18