We all have one. Even Monica had one [I hope someone gets this reference]. I’m talking about that scary closet, drawer, dresser, room, box, whatever. That place where we throw something that we think we might need, someday, maybe, perhaps. Then it sits there until it gets covered with another endlessly important something.
I didn’t get a before-shot of the closet, but here is pretty much everything emptied onto our dining room table. We decided to finally tackle our scary closet a couple weeks ago. I had been wanting to do this for a long time. It was so stressful to me knowing that it existed. I had a few things that I thought might be in there, and might be useful, but it was an overwhelming thought to try to dig them out.
The closet is a built-in that is in our hallway. It has two shelves, and three huge drawers. It could be amazingly useful if it was organized. As it was, it was completely un-useful. And scary.
So, we mustered our courage and grabbed everything, and took it to the dining room. We sorted through the 4,387 gift bags. We recycled or folded 2,314 pieces of tissue paper. Seriously hyperbolic here, but you get it. I can’t remember receiving that as many gifts as there were bags. Really. We recycled many of them, and kept quite a few. Instead of randomly thrown in, we sorted them and slipped them into bigger gift bags.
We went through the nests of wires and figured out which ones we still needed. Why did we have some of these wires? For phones that we didn’t even have any more? Why? Ugh. Every electronic device now has a place, and wires are neatly wound.
We went through sheets, blankets, shower curtains (ummm… our shower has a sliding door… curtains?), pillows. Most of that went into the attic, and some into the drawers.
Rolls of wrapping paper got a drawer of their own.
Our cloth diapers have a place to hang out while not doing their thing.
We still have a whole, pristine empty drawer.
It feels like a breath of fresh air.
It is really quite absurd how much excess was in there. How much excess we were carrying with us. And why did it take us so long? Why did we just open the closet, throw something in, or try to dig something out, then close it and try to forget about it? Sure, it was scary, but it wasn’t going to kill us.
The scary closet it a metaphor, friends. It’s real, but it’s also a metaphor. You know what I mean? Sure you do.