The Great Closet Purge

I think the problem got started back in 2004, the fall, when I began graduate school. I made friends; I got busy. I brought a lot of paper and books and other school stuff home, and didn’t really have the time (or perhaps the desire) to find good places for it as I should have. I got deeper into the schoolwork. I made more friends. I got involved in several social scenes, I began a relationship, the relationship ended. I sunk into a well of self-pity and must finish my thesis frenzy (the two don’t mix well, by the way–I recommend not breaking up just before you finish your thesis).

My bedroom got so badly piled with stuff that I couldn’t stand being in there anymore, and I moved into my guest room. (Probably that was the time when I should have faced the music and started the clearing-out process. But did I? No.) And when the movers came to pack things up, my house was still a mess of piles and junk and you name it. I moved in here, a much larger place, and managed to restrain the piles (some of which are still just boxes full of random junk), for a time. It even looked nice if you didn’t dig too far… You may recall me worrying while I was deployed about the mess I’d left behind, down to the basket of dirty clothes that I’d left sitting in my closet.

But with the addition of my knitting habit late last year, things have gotten out of hand. Unlike my beading craze of a couple years before, knitting takes yarn, which takes up space, and starts to overflow into living spaces. I’ve been busy again with business trips and schools and other things, and my very LARGE apartment is now overflowing with junk and piles and stuff that needs to be sorted through…

So it is time for the Great Closet Purge. I just went through my bedroom closet and filled 2 giant-sized trash bags with clothes (for Goodwill), and I’m making a start on the other random junk that needs to be tossed out. However, after two hours of that, I’m reaching the tearing my hair out, can’t make any decisions anymore point… so it’s time to pause, and begin again when I’ve had time to regain my equilibrium.

I’ve already had the chance to find things I’d completely forgotten about, and experience the, “Oh my goodness, I didn’t know I still had this!” moment (before putting it in the Goodwill bag because obviously I didn’t need it if I didn’t even remember I’d had it).

I’ve also had the opportunity to discover at least one thing that I thought was lost for good–a very good thing, since the item in question was pretty expensive. I’m missing a couple other things I’ve been looking for, now, for a while (but these are not expensive, so if they’re permanently misplaced it won’t be the end of the world). Of course, I’m still dealing with a bunch of stuff that I keep for sentimental reasons… a pile of t-shirts, for instance, that I honestly can’t bear to part with, for all that I’m not going to wear them ever again. These are t-shirts I got in high school, or college, and wore religiously throughout the 90’s. I wonder if I can make a t-shirt quilt…

(Brief pause as I Google “t-shirt quilt”…) Wow! Or I could just order one and have it sent back to me!!! I may have to do this–it would get rid of the annoying pile of t-shirts I don’t use anymore, and it would be a nice warm quilt that was one-of-a-kind. I may just do this.

Oh yeah… was I writing something?

Anyway, the process has begun. It will be a long job full of much effort on my part, but if I can have all my stuff purged and ready to be packed by the time I have to deploy, I will be very happy. (Yes, this time through I plan to let go of my apartment, put the stuff in storage for a year, and figure out where I’m going to live on the other end of my deployment.)

I certainly won’t be tempted to buy any more stuff (like clothes and furniture) for a while… though for some reason I can’t seem to stop myself with the yarn and book purchases. I think that’s a collecting instinct, or something. Hmmm.