Out with the old, in with the... old?

Today I cleaned out my closet.

I’ve needed to clean out the closet since Christmas, but I’ve kept putting it off. I thought I was putting it off because it’s such an arduous, time-consuming task, but after today’s work I wonder if there is another reason I dreaded the closet clean out.

I literally have a woman’s clothing store in my closet. I’m not joking. I have a quite large walk-in closet and up to a few hours ago it was stuffed to its breaking point.

My weight has fluctuated so steadily for the past six years, that as I cleaned out my closet I found clothing sized large, sized 18 (from a regular, non-plus size store), all the way up to sized 28 from Lane Bryant.

About a quarter of the clothing in my closet doesn’t fit because it’s too small. These pieces are the clothing I have memorable attachments to and just could not give away when I originally grew too large to where them (besides, I always knew I was going to eventually get down to a lower weight, and I knew I’d get to wear these items again).

I decided to donate about a quarter of the closet’s contents to Goodwill. First, all the articles I’ve already shrunk out of went into the pile. Everything “wintery” went into the pile, even if it still fit. All the “holiday” clothing, fancy pieces included, went to Goodwill, too. By the time I will be wearing winter and holiday clothing again, I will be too small for these items! Feeling confident enough that I WILL be that much thinner by December 2010 that I needn’t hold onto those clothes was empowering, but also a little frightening. The tiny voice in the back of my head piped up with “are you sure you want to do that? What if you need them again?” But I quickly told that voice to shut up.

I then went through and sorted all the clothing into piles of when I thought I would be able to fit into them again. So-close-to-fitting-I-could-practically-taste-it clothes went towards the front of the closet, while those size larges and 18s settled in the nether-regions.

Bittersweet was the feeling when I was finally finished with this task. I was proud for committing myself to losing this weight so much that I donated clothes knowing I won’t fit into them when it’s time (seasonally) to wear them again. But I also wondered how I had ever let the weight slowly (or was it?) creep on. I have lost weight before and when I got down to 166 pounds in college, I swore it was never coming back on. But then I went gained all of the 100 plus pounds I had lost, plus an extra 25 to 35! How had I made myself blind as I grew bigger and bigger? Why didn’t I stay healthy and thin?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do know I must have willfully made myself “blind” as I grew. And I know I would justify things to myself and say “well, it’s okay that you’ve gained back 25 of those pounds you lost—you still look good.” Until I woke up last year, weighing 316 pounds and just didn’t look good anymore.

So, it’s out with the old, in with the old again! At least I have some killer clothes, with great memories attached to them, which I will be wearing as I progress on my journey!