It's been impossible to find anything to wear even though I have so much clothing. I have a little more than half the closet, a full set of 5 drawers plus one drawer from my husband's side. I have my go-tos and then there's everything else.
Every morning, in my haze, it is a challenge to find work appropriate clothes and for weekends it takes forever to find anything cute enough to go out in.
And then once something is out, it's impossible to find a home for it so things kept disappearing into the abyss. There were clothes on the desk, the chair, the bed, the floor and where ever else you can imagine.
Living in a small apartment starts to feel claustrophobic with that much stuff and I don't know how my husband puts up with me. I'm incredibly grateful that he does.
Last week, I found a blog, Reading My Tea Leaves, which inspired me to clean up and purge my closet. The author, her husband and their two babies live in a tiny NYC apartment and before the kids they lived in an even smaller NYC apartment. Her level of organization and minimalism is inspiring. I read through all of her blogs about living in a tiny apartment and about purging/shaping her wardrobe.
And I realized that it was something I had to do.
There are two of us in in a one bedroom apartment where the living room doubles as an office (for Baros) and a craft studio (mostly for me, but sometimes for Baros too). Between the two of us, we have a lot of stuff.
But let me be honest, I have A LOT of useless stuff. Even in my last apartment and when I was living at home, I had wayyy too much clothing but never anything to wear. I had every craft imaginable and paper supplies for days but I usually feel cramped with no where to move. And of all of the stuff, I use maybe half of it (and that's probably being generous). Of the clothing, I don't even think I like most of it.
So I'm creating a new resolution for myself. Clean and organize, but more importantly downsize. It's the new adventure of being an adult and actually living like one.
This past weekend was the first step.
I took everything out of my closet, emptied my drawers (with the exception of my sock/underwear drawer and my workout gear and my seasonal winter stuff... which will be dealt with separately later on) and I tried to make myself brutally honest.
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| All of my clothes on the bed |
I was honest about how often I wear things/want to wear things, and about how everything looked on. And then I purged.
After reading a whole lot about purging clothing, I decided to follow a 4 pile system.
- Love it/Gotta keep it
- Maybe: I might wear this/It has it's uses
- Destroyed: No longer wearable, broken/worn out
- Donation: Still perfectly good but I'm not using it- it doesn't fit right, I don't like it etc.
My largest pile was the maybe. My love it pile was okay. The donation pile pretty large. My unwearable pile was minimal (most of my clothes are well maintained).
In my initial burst of making the piles, I didn't try anything on. I tried to think about the last time I'd worn it, if I liked it, when I could wear it, etc. I tried the Japanese method that involves holding the item. If it brings you happiness, you keep it. If not, it goes out. However, I quickly understood that it was more difficult than it seemed.
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| The Start of my donation pile |
I also realized that the maybe pile was too big and I wasn't sure about everything in the Love it pile. Therefore, I went through the piles again.
This time I tried everything on. Did it fit? Did it fit well? Did I feel good in it? I tried to be honest about if I would actually wear it. Where would I wear it? Work appropriate? With What? If I got rid of it, would I actually miss it? Was it comfortable? Was it tight? Would I have to do the wiggle and be annoyed by it all day?
I bothered Baros for his opinion about a million times.
For anything, I had an emotional attachment to, I tried to figure out why and if it was worth keeping for that reason alone (bridesmaids dresses and clothing my grandmother made me had to stay even though I won't wear them anytime soon). By the end of the day, my donation pile grew incredibly and I think at the end of the season when I go through things again, it will grow again.
Most importantly, I have free hangers and my clothes seems to fit in the drawers (we'll see what happens when we do laundry).
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| My folded donations |
I can do more. I can purge more stuff, I just need to be a little mean and a lot realistic. There's no reason to own so much stuff that I don't use. It's hard to get rid of the clothes that are too small for you and the clothes you bought for when you lost a few pounds. It's hard to get rid of the clothes you bought on sale but never wore or the clothes from when you used to go dancing. But realistically, we don't need all of those things. It sucks that we didn't use them enough and wasted money somewhere along the line.
But No excuses. Someone else can get use of those clothes through donation.
I felt like it was a great first step to downsizing. I still had some attachment issues and I definitely still have too many cardigans but I reduced my wardrobe considerably and when summer is over I can get rid of any of the stuff I didn't use from now until then.
On Sunday, I took a second step and I also got rid of the desk in my room. In theory, it was a crafting table. In reality, it was a space to throw things and collect dust. It had so many unorganized, forgotten things on it.
Things were either put away where they belong, thrown away or put to the side for further debate (we ran out of time since my friend came to visit and I needed a shower). The desk itself was disassembled. We kept part of the wood as a transportable crafting table so we don't ruin the kitchen table or Baros' beautiful work desk with glue or sharp objects.
It's hard to say goodbye to things even when we know we don't need them anymore. But being realistic is part of being an adult. It'll feel better to live in a less cluttered space with the ability to find things more easily.
So I've accepted the challenge and the adventure of decluttering our space.
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