parting is such sweet sorrow

(first off  - yes, i'm still alive, i just haven't blogged in months because i'm lazy. but not because i haven't wanted to. in fact, i'm always thinking, "oh i should write that on my blog" but then i get home and sitting on my couch watching a "real housewives of new jersey" rerun just seems more appealing then typing on a computer. l-a-z-y. so my apologies...again. and it won't be the last i'm sure. ok, now to the blog.....)

so yesterday was a tragic day.

i cleaned out my closet! well, WE (my husband and i) cleaned out the closet. there, i gave him credit.

i've been dreading cleaning out the closet for months (MONTHS) but yesterday was it. didn't i just move in with my husband less than a year ago, you ask? yes, yes i did. and i purged a lot of stuff before moving in but my shameful shopping addiction had left us in quite the predicament.

after squeezing clothes into drawers and onto shelves, it was time. i mean, my clothes deserve some respect. the beautiful gems should not have to be mushed into just any old available space. they don't expect to mingle with clothes of the hideous past (i.e., my red zip up sweatshirt from 8th grade. god i was sad to let that go but ugly is ugly. or worse yet, my "dressy" gauchos. sometimes, i question my own taste. but only sometimes).

aside from hating manual labor, i think it was emotionally painful. my clothes are my little kiddies. so yes, basically, i was discarding my children yesterday (mommyhood, here i come!) and giving away even the ugly clothes was sad. but there are some things that you just don't want to get rid of...

• the fat jeans - the jeans that you wear when you put on about 5-10 lbs. also known as "i'll wear these when i'm pregnant" jeans.
• the skinny jeans - not to be confused with the trendy new "skinny jeans" these jeans are how you measure your weight (i.e., "if i fit into these, i'm officially skinny." also known as the "i can't believe i ever fit in these" jeans).
• the stinky pants - the lounge pants i wore during and post college. the ones that have a hole that i sewed up. also known as the pants my mom claimed was the reason i was single in college. they're amazingly hideous and wonderfully comfortable. and for the record, i kept them. so there.
• the jcrew sweaters - also known as the "i paid too much to just give these away but i haven't worn them in over 3 years so they really need to go" sweaters. i have too many of them to mention and really, they're from jcrew. when are they going to go out of style. but let's face it, i'm not wearing them and they're taking up room for all the other jcrew sweaters i could be buying.
• the chanel blazer - ok, if this was really a chanel blazer you'd have to rip it out of my dead, cold hands. but it's really the "i swear, this looks like a chanel boucle blazer" blazer. it's also the one i tried on for my husband who responded with "throw it out. it's kind of ugly." i guess this means i just need to buy a REAL chanel blazer.

a couple things i realized during the entire process:

1. i really need to be more discerning when i go shopping. i'm happy to say i have become more so in the past 2 years but really, i'm not sure how some of that stuff even landed in my closet to begin with. embarrassing.
2. my husband always manages to rationalize keeping that one ugly hawaiian shirt. i swear we've cleaned out the closet twice in the past year and that thing always seems to survive.
3. i don't need 25 pairs of jeans. i really don't. i dont' know how i've justified keeping them for so long. now i'm down to 7. that just seems fair.
4. i didn't like the shirt my husband wore on our first date. i learned this when he asked "remember this?" holding up the shirt and i thought he said "what do you think of this?" to which i responded "it's ugly, donate!" oops.
5. lastly, now that i have all this extra space, i could use some new clothes.