Something that I discovered in my years as a professional organizer is that sometimes people hold onto clothes for the IDEA of who they want to be, not who they actually are.
For example, I own way too many cocktail dresses.
How do I know I own too many?
Because the last time I went to a formal cocktail party was a beautiful Saturday eve circa 2010.
It’s not my typical scene, although sometimes I wish it was! I often lose myself in a daydream, not unlike Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red” video. I float into a crowded room dressed to kill. All eyes turn to gaze upon me as my hair blows lightly in the breeze and my teeth sparkle as I smile….
Therein lies the problem. That is not my real life.
My real life is messy. I work out. I carpool kids to football practice. I attend business luncheons in flats! (I know. And I’m sorry.) I work with clients via phone or zoom dressed business on top and pajamas on the bottom.
That is reality.
Fancy cocktail dresses are not.
It is very tempting to hold onto a dream via your closet. Those skinny pants you were able to fit into once after you had the flu for two weeks. The ski suit you bought to jet-set across the country for a ski vacation that you’ve only done once. Still, you fancy yourself a skinny, jet-setting skier, so you hang onto all of it.
I’m sorry to break it to you, but you are not a skinny, jet-setting skier.
You are a mom. Or a dad. A friend. A chef. A chauffeur. A working professional. And those titles don’t require ski boots.
So, let go of the idea of who these clothes will make you be.
And embrace how you actually live.
See, what you are really purging is not the clothes, but the hope that your life was different.
And that is the heaviest donation bag that you will ever carry.
But, once you give it all away, you are FREE!
The mental weight you release will make you feel 100 lbs lighter!
And now you can get down to the business of being you. The real you.
It’s not true what Shakespere said. The clothes don’t make the man.
At the end of the day, you can be the powerful, amazing, loving, funny, inspiring, caring, and badass person that you want to be.
Just do it in sweats.
