Giving and Grieving

The title of this post reminds me of a Freaks & Geeks episode. Like "Noshing and Moshing" or "Discos and Dragons."

That show was so great.

And now Daniel Desario hosts the Academy Awards stoned and Linda Cardellini is nowhere to be found (sad).

Anyway, I titled this post this way because today I gave away a bunch of clothes, and then I grieved. Maybe "grieve" is too strong a word, but I couldn't think of a word that starts with "G" that means "was kind of hard but I will probably forget about all of it soon enough."

Lately I've been realizing I have too many items of clothing - Dave and I share two closets (small closets, but still) and then I use part of a dresser and part of another closet. And that's not counting all of the clothing laying on the floor, which is - sadly - quite a bit.

So today I realized I needed to go through a bunch of it and throw away anything I haven't worn recently. For some reason, it's not until being faced with throwing away something that I'm like, "Ohh I can't throw that away! I'm planning to wear it someday when I have a really fancy event to go to and have lost 5 pounds in my butt and grow 3 inches and magically start looking good in that color!" It's like, I try something on a million times and it always looks off, but then I can never bring myself to get rid of it. But today, I ransacked my closets and did away with a ton of stuff. And it felt great.

However, as much as I'd like to think I'm not a pack-rat, I still have a hard time throwing away things that have sentimental value to me. The following items survived the purge today:

My cheap, Forever 21 college graduation dress. I bought it with my own money, in college, so I know it must've been cheap because I never had more than $20 to my name at any one time during college. Yes, it's cute, but I rarely wear it. There's just something about graduation clothes, though. It took me a good few years to finally get rid of my high school graduation dress. It didn't fit after I started college (I'm sureeeee) but I kept it anyway. There's just something special about it. That's how I felt about this dress. In a way, it's my last tangible link to those years of my life - something that's always there in my house even as time keeps passing on.

This scarf-esque wrap I bought in Kenya. It's kind of an awkward size and texture, and it's not really a scarf or wrap. I haven't worn it since I returned from Kenya in 2007 and can't imagine that I'll ever wear it again. I bought it at the end of my trip, when I was in Nairobi for a few nights before flying home. It got cold at night, so I would wear it when some friends and I would go out to dinner at night. It'd be weird to wear here - there's so many other options for scarfs that actually fit and feel right, that it'd be weird to go out wearing it. It's not cute, and I've never been tempted to wear it here as I did there. But I guess that's what I like about it so much - that when I was wearing it in Kenya, I didn't think about any of those things.

My wedding shoes. Trust me - I love these babies and have definitely tried to wear them several times since the wedding. But they don't fit. Either my feet have grown or the shoes somehow shrank - either way, they're painful and I can't wear them. But I love them - and they're my wedding shoes - and I feel like, even though I'll never wear anything from that day again (dress? no. shoes? no. fur wrap? I'd like to say yes, but realistically, I'm not Elizabeth Taylor) I don't think I'll ever be able to give any of it away.