Chucking Out Time
Outside my house is a wheelie bin. And in that wheelie bin (finally!) are a good proportion of my fat clothes. It's taken such a long time to take this simple step.
First of all I took my fat clothes out of my wardrobe and put them under my bed. Then the pile started growing, so I put them in a bin bag in the spare room.
But it didn't go anywhere. It just stayed there, looking at me.
Then a few weeks ago I went through the exercise again. This time I not only sorted through the clothes I'd already decided to chuck, putting them into charity shop-worthy and completely unwearable by anyone piles (I'm not sure the charity shop has such low standards as to want my old underwear or jeans with the thighs worn completely through), and a separate pile for suits which might be OK to pass on through other means.
And a separate pile for one size 22 suit and one size 22 pair of jeans, for after photos and reminders. I can already stand in one leg of the jeans, although taking a photo isn't so easy. Because I live alone I'd have to use the self timer, which would involve setting up the camera, pressing the button and then hopping into shot. I might leave that fun for another day.
But still, the bags stayed resolutely on the landing outside my bedroom door. It was as though I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them, even though I don't fit the clothes and, even if I did, they're too horribly worn to wear if I had any self-esteem whatsoever.
Today I finally cracked and got them into the bin (or at least the completely unwearable bags, the charity shop bag and the suit bag have been stashed in the wardrobe in the spare room to be moved on to their new home on another day). This is a big step, however, I'm worrying. The rubbish isn't collected til Tuesday and I dread finding myself rooting through the bin to pluck out some pyjamas that don't even come close to fitting me.
Why am I so attached to this stuff? It's not like I wear it, it's not even like (for the most part) I would want to wear it. And I'd be embarassed to give the stuff in the bin to anyone because of the pure hideousness and worn-ness of it.
But it still feels like I should be keeping it anyway, because they're my clothes, and throwing them away is throwing away part of me. Throwing away the fat part of me, to be sure, but still throwing away a person I've been for a long long time. Throwing away clothes that have history, like the dress I wore for my graduation and the skirt I wore for my second (both of which, incidentally, were kept through years of increased fatness and never wore again, not even during the period when I passed back through that size on the way back down. They're good enough for the charity bag, for that reason). Throwing away clothes that I was ecstatic to get into back in summer, but which now are too big to wear, but too small to make good photos, even though they meant a lot to me for that brief period of time.
Maybe I'm also worried about throwing away that comfort blanket, really coming to terms with the fact that I'm not that person any more. Making the commitment to saying that I don't ever want to be that person again, even though I was happy enough like that for so long.
But there's no going back now. There is basically nothing in my wardrobe that I owned this time last year, and those clothes are history. Finally.
First of all I took my fat clothes out of my wardrobe and put them under my bed. Then the pile started growing, so I put them in a bin bag in the spare room.
But it didn't go anywhere. It just stayed there, looking at me.
Then a few weeks ago I went through the exercise again. This time I not only sorted through the clothes I'd already decided to chuck, putting them into charity shop-worthy and completely unwearable by anyone piles (I'm not sure the charity shop has such low standards as to want my old underwear or jeans with the thighs worn completely through), and a separate pile for suits which might be OK to pass on through other means.
And a separate pile for one size 22 suit and one size 22 pair of jeans, for after photos and reminders. I can already stand in one leg of the jeans, although taking a photo isn't so easy. Because I live alone I'd have to use the self timer, which would involve setting up the camera, pressing the button and then hopping into shot. I might leave that fun for another day.
But still, the bags stayed resolutely on the landing outside my bedroom door. It was as though I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them, even though I don't fit the clothes and, even if I did, they're too horribly worn to wear if I had any self-esteem whatsoever.
Today I finally cracked and got them into the bin (or at least the completely unwearable bags, the charity shop bag and the suit bag have been stashed in the wardrobe in the spare room to be moved on to their new home on another day). This is a big step, however, I'm worrying. The rubbish isn't collected til Tuesday and I dread finding myself rooting through the bin to pluck out some pyjamas that don't even come close to fitting me.
Why am I so attached to this stuff? It's not like I wear it, it's not even like (for the most part) I would want to wear it. And I'd be embarassed to give the stuff in the bin to anyone because of the pure hideousness and worn-ness of it.
But it still feels like I should be keeping it anyway, because they're my clothes, and throwing them away is throwing away part of me. Throwing away the fat part of me, to be sure, but still throwing away a person I've been for a long long time. Throwing away clothes that have history, like the dress I wore for my graduation and the skirt I wore for my second (both of which, incidentally, were kept through years of increased fatness and never wore again, not even during the period when I passed back through that size on the way back down. They're good enough for the charity bag, for that reason). Throwing away clothes that I was ecstatic to get into back in summer, but which now are too big to wear, but too small to make good photos, even though they meant a lot to me for that brief period of time.
Maybe I'm also worried about throwing away that comfort blanket, really coming to terms with the fact that I'm not that person any more. Making the commitment to saying that I don't ever want to be that person again, even though I was happy enough like that for so long.
But there's no going back now. There is basically nothing in my wardrobe that I owned this time last year, and those clothes are history. Finally.
posted by YP at 3:03 PM
2 Comments:
That reminds me - I have big bag of clothes in the back of my car that I've been planning to chuck in a charity bin. They've been there for months!
I was cleaning out my closet a couple weeks ago. If there was something I wanted to trash but I had memories attached to it, I just took a picture of it. That way I have the memory of the item, but it's not occupying any physical space except on my hard drive.
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