Nothing
to Wear, Everything to Gain
I finally did it:
The deed I thought I could never commit as an adult.
Lord knows
I had resisted all these years, turned my back on the
temptation despite all the entreaties from friends and
family, despite all the instructive how-to articles
in newspapers and magazines; this act was never attempted,
let alone completed.
But now it’s
done, finis, committed with deliberate care if not abandon,
and I confess, I feel better for having done it.
If you’ve
any doubt, let me once again state with all clarity and
sense of purpose, with voice firm and proud:
Reader, I have done it, and it is done, and congratulations
are the order of the day, for I have cleaned out my closest.
That’s right,
the jammed together, packed pit of a closet is cleared—organized
even—and my chest swells with pride. Now
this is a closet to behold, my closet.
Color coordinated.
By season. By clothing type.
Why had
I resisted this act so long?
I suspect it’s
not unusual for each of us to have our personal Achilles
heel, and mine, always mine—and I thought forever
mine—had been my closet.
Oh, over
the years I’d made attempts and donated a few items,
here and there. I’d passed along my biggest buying
mistakes—the lurid and the ghastly. But
never before had I completed this massive clean up.
Now
in my mid-fifties, would it be a farewell to my youth
to abandon the kicky black leather miniskirt, the slinky
silver sheath? Even though they—and
I—were far apart on the numerical scale? They being
a size six, and me being—well, never mind; what
are a few digits between friends?
We had a reunion
of sorts, these clothes and me. I
found clothes I had not seen in years.
While I sorted,
I remembered. I remembered the origin of each item. Funny
how each had a history, a story to tell. Some
were bought new, some came from consignment shops.
A few were gifts from dear friends. Those were the hardest
to part with—the gifts. They were a scrapbook
of memories and kind thoughts about friends, those still
here and one departed but not forgotten.
How could I part
with the dress my departed friend had so sweetly given?
Then I remembered how generous she had been. Maybe
this dress would serve another for a job interview, a
lunch in a chic restaurant. I’ll pass on her gift,
I thought. And so this dress, too, was
folded, smoothed with care, and placed in the donation
bag.
While engaged in
this moment of truth, I
also gathered together all the shoes: the painful tortuous
spikes, the pinching pumps, the out-of-style, the mules
and clogs that fell off every time I climbed the stairs.
A twenty-five year
collection emerged, dusty, from the murky closet depths.
Now all those shoes have been banished, too. The
remainder, just a few, sit in a neat row, just so, precise;
they invite me to walk on a beach, or boot up and go hike
a forest trail. A few low-heeled business pumps
sit seriously, ready for a meeting. None of them hurt.
Good shoes all, waiting to go places.
My closet looks
a bit forlorn. There are
empty spaces. The clothes hang on matching hangers, skirts
clipped neatly, jackets on padded hangers.
So it is done.
Farewell
to my youth, but not to my memories. For
truth be told, sheltering in an honored nook of the closet,
hangs one tiny-sized frock. A frothy confection
in white tulle and black satin, this dress will likely
never fit me again. But it—and I—had
such a romance, once upon a time on New Years Eve, dancing
to Strauss’s “Blue Danube” at the Symphony
Hall. It would take a much
harder heart than mine to banish this cutie to a consignment
shop.
Clean closet
or no, we girls must have our dreams.
Patricia
Frank
writes
from
Beaufort,
NC
on
business
and
non-business
topics
for
organizations,
magazines,
newspapers,
the
web—and
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Mother.
Life
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