One part McFatty one part Hoarders

My dear, darling, awesome, wonderful husband has a little issue with stillness sometimes. As in, he can’t sit still. As in, last year on Staycation he almost killed me with his need to be productive and this was a 3 day weekend and OMGRELAXANDSTOPMOVING.

Yeah.

So, in order to save my marriage not fight, I decided I’d just be productive this weekend instead of being my usual lazy ass self.

Saturday, as you already know, was my cousin’s wedding. It was beautiful and not nearly as sweltering as my own, though she may beg to differ because she was in more layers than me this time. But it did involve a certain amount of toddler wrangling on his part on Saturday while I was embroiled in the getting-her-dressed festivities. So he was a certain sort of productive and so was I. In my own way.

***Sidenote: what is it about Southern weddings where guests feel like it’s their duty and right to just go traipsing through the venue until they find the bride and see her before the wedding, huh? At one point, there was no less than 15 people in that room with us, NOT INCLUDING US.

Anyway.***

Sunday morning we woke up and surveyed the carnage that was our bedroom.

Y’all, I’m messy. I get it. I do. My clothes spill out of my drawers because I’m constantly in a hurry to find what I need and then the drawers get all jumbly and then nothing else fits so I end up with laundry baskets of clothes sitting outside my dresser. But then I dig through those to find what I need and they end up spilling out, too. And gradually the mess just gravitates toward other smaller, non-me messes until there’s a giant mess in the floor and we can’t tell who started it.

(Me. It was most likely me. Moving on…)

Dan kind of gave me the whiny “Baaaaayyyyybbbbbuh” that means my mess is ruining his life.^

So I got all sullen and decided that I’d just sit down in the floor and start cleaning. So I did. I started with my nightstand and then I rotated around to my dresser and then my laundry baskets and then my closet. And what I ended up with was this:

My closet threw up. In a pile.

Off-roading on my old clothes.

People, I know how hoarders get their start.

I decided that
I went through my closet and I tossed out things that were size 12s that I haven’t worn since Dan and I got married and which, given the state of my McFattiness, I know I will never wear again. Not because I don’t like the piece. But because it will never fit again. My body will never be as it once was. It wasn’t glamorous or fantastic or amazing then. But it will never, ever be that way again. And even if I lose 50 pounds? Those pieces still won’t fit because of the genetic predisposition I have to this flabby stomach of mine. (Thanks, Mama. o_o )

I’ve GOT to learn to be okay with this. To figure something else out.

Secondly, people become hoarders not because they enjoy living with the smell of rotting things and cat turds (::shudder::), but because for some of them the things they cannot throw away are memories. Like the white dress I wore when we rode to the hotel after our wedding. Or the black dress I wore to our rehearsal dinner. Or the other black dress I wore to my youth pastor’s funeral. Or the pretty black dress I wore for our engagement pictures. Or my first, and so far only, suit. (I couldn’t part with that. Not yet.)

I had a sort of epiphany last night as I was bagging up those things to take them to Goodwill tomorrow.

My life since I was a teenager has been laced with intermittent bouts of depression. And sometimes, I didn’t even know it. But just like Joshua’s shoes, those items of clothing were the tangible proof that I lived. That I was happy then. That there were good times in my life.

Y’all, this inability to let go of things blows. Seriously. I didn’t want to hang on to things thinking “Oh, I’ll lose a million pounds and this will fit again!” No. My heart got sad as I went through those things last night. And let’s not think about the nearly 8 bags and 2 diaper boxes FULL of Joshua’s clothes from the past two years, okay? I will need a Xanax and a bottle of sauv blanc to make it through those without completely losing my shit.

My sullen-ness and drive to get things done so as to not make Dan not lose his mind? Did get me a fully working (finally, three years later) bathroom door on our master bath.

So at least there’s that.

^I have totally employed hyperbole here. It probably just ruined his morning. Not his life.