Cobwebs In My Closet

My enthusiasm for clutter clearing has waned. Not that I'm anywhere near clutter-clearing completion. Instead I keep finding other things to do. Things like napping, and eating pizza, and drinking beer with friends, and accidentally corrupting the youth of the Valley, and eating more pizza, and drinking more beer. You know. The important stuff. So much for keeping the agreement I made with myself to clear while others cleaned!

A couple of weeks ago I skipped out on my de-cluttering duties to attend a colleague's retirement tea. After the tea I wanted to run several errands before meeting Hubby for pizza and beer. 

I struggled to find an appropriate outfit for my afternoon plans. I wanted something that was comfortable for running errands, presentable for the retirement festivities, yet not too fancy-schmancy for the outdoor patio at the brewery. 

I stood in my bathrobe and flipped through the items in my closet. Nothing seemed quite right. Things that might have worked seemed too tight, too clingy or too confining. (Now that I review my pizza-and-beer-related activities, I think I can see why I was running into problems finding clothing that fit!) I became more and more irritated. Hangers were zinged across the rod with greater and greater force. That is until my zinging disturbed a big, hairy spider. It scurried across the item I was scowling at and disappeared into my clothing. 

Sadly, I was going through items so rapidly, and I was so stunned by the appearance of the spider, that my brain didn't register WHAT item it scurried across. I knew it was in there, but I didn't know where.  

My first impulse, once I stopped hyperventilating, was to set fire to the closet. Only the thought of our hot, dry summer prevented my going for the matches. I knew that any effort to torch the spider would likely result in the loss of the entire neighbourhood. 

Since I like to be a good neighbour, I promptly dismissed fire as a solution to my arachnid-contaminated wardrobe. The only reasonable solution was to replace all my clothes. Gingerly, so as not to provoke the spider into attack mode, I closed my closet door and started to plan my shopping spree. Except I was in my bathrobe. I couldn't go shopping for new clothes because I didn't have any clothes to wear shopping for new clothes. 

Darn.

In this case, it was fortunate that I'm a rather lazy housekeeper. (Hence the huge amounts of clutter and the need to pay someone else to clean.) I don't "find the time" to put away laundry. As a result, I was able to find a suitable outfit in a basket of clean clothing that hadn't yet made its way to the closet. It didn't solve the spider-in-my-wardrobe dilemma, but it allowed me to leave the house. 

Later, after some calmer reflection and a couple of beers, I realized that fire and shopping weren't the only solutions to my problem. The most reasonable, and the most scary, thing to do would be to clean out my closet. Maybe if there were fewer places to hide, spiders wouldn't be tempted to move in. I needed to clear out the cobwebs, so to speak.

It took a few days, and a lack of clean clothing, to work up the courage to begin the process. I took several deep breaths, opened the closet door, and gently plunged in. I hoped that the spider had moved on. It had not. For the record 20-plus-year-old broomstick skirts are the perfect hiding place for large, hairy spiders. The spider and the skirt were both disposed of, as were several other unused items in my closet. 

There's definitely more that could go, but I'm pleased with the start I've made. I didn't realize how many "shoulds" had been stored in my closet along with the clothes (and the spiders). It felt good to let go of items that I felt I should mend, or iron, lose 10 pounds in order to wear.  My closet feels lighter, more organized, and far less scary now.