Cleaning Out the Closet

      It’s a big closet, a walk-in, my stuff on the left, my wife’s stuff on the right. The top rail of my stuff is long-sleeved dress shirts, ties, sports jackets and suits. The bottom rail is short-sleeved dress shirts and pants, not including the two pairs of jeans I actually wear, which are in the bedroom hanging from the clothes tree.

      I haven’t worn the dress shirts or the ties or the sports jackets or the suits or the regular pants in  . . . I don’t know how long. These were clothes I had accumulated over the years, clothes I wore when I had a job to go to, clothes I wore when there were occasions to wear such clothes. But I no longer have a job to go to. I also don’t have many reasonably fancy occasions to dress up or at least dress a little better than my now common everyday uniform of t-shirt (short-sleeved in the summer; long-sleeved in the colder weather) and jeans or shorts.

      But the other day, thinking—like I do almost every day—it was a good day to at least try some decluttering, I went into the closet to check out what was there. I decided to try on some of the clothing, maybe a couple of sports jackets, some shirts, a pair of pants or two, and see what they looked like.

      Nothing fit. Nothing looked good. Very little was in style. Shoulders were too wide. Ties too showy. Collars too frayed.

      I needed, obviously, to get rid of at least some of the old clothing. And yet, it was really difficult to part with anything, which is probably not that uncommon a quandary.

      That doesn’t mean I was fantasizing I would gain or lose 20 pounds and the jackets would once again fit. It doesn’t mean I expect to be invited to a fancy party where that suit would be perfect or that I was thinking the time has come when bell-bottoms are definitely back.

      No, part of my reluctance, of course, was the feeling that throwing away something that once cost actual money felt somehow wasteful—even if it’s been sitting untouched for eight years. And, hey, you don’t throw out things that still technically work, right? Even if the jeans haven’t fit since the Obama administration, the thought of tossing something perfectly intact just feels wrong. Plus, it’s naturally easier to not make a decision than to make one. Keeping clothes is the default; letting them go requires attention and judgment and actual decision-making.

      But I think there are some other universal reasons, too, that we keep old clothes we don’t wear anymore—and most of those reasons are emotional, and almost none of them are practical.

     Clothes can be like little time capsules. I bought that tie when I was wandering around downtown Pittsburgh, on that baseball stadium tour. That shirt was from the great vacation we had in Rome and I wore that suit when we went to what’s her name’s gala celebration. Getting rid of those clothes would feel like erasing the memories.

      The jackets and shirts hanging in the closet also represent different versions of who I’ve been—"the heavier me,” “the cooler me,” most of all, the “younger me.” The clothes have become proof that those selves existed.

      Finally, there’s the fear that the precise moment we donate that old blazer we’ll immediately find ourselves invited to the one event where it would actually be appropriate.

     Nevertheless, I decided to rid my closet of some of the old clothing. But first, I did ask a few friends and relatives if they wanted a perfectly in-good-condition sports jacket. Maybe a finely tailored dark suit? Some button-down oxfords?

      They all said the same thing: they already had too many clothes in their closets and didn’t wear many of them either.