Oh, My Hoarding

I'll show you my embarrassing crap-that-I-can't-throw-out if you'll show me yours.

I do not need to own you, cropped and studded vest.

Ramshackle Glam is a website about parenting, divorce, aging, mental health, and other funny stuff. This post is free, but if you want to upgrade you’ll automatically receive an eBook that I wrote just for paid subscribers. I’m pretty psyched about it :) And remember, if you become a Founding Member you also get a one-on-one consult with me about writing for a living, personal branding, or *literally* whatever’s on your mind.

A couple of fun recent posts you may have missed:

• Meet My Favorite Room (Give Me All the Sparkles)

• The Loveliest Date Night (Oh, God)

• The Post I Wish I’d Read Before Having My Second Child

And now…your post!

Years ago, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and got all inspired to have emotional conversations with my socks. I ended up going through the entire house from top to bottom and throwing out something like twenty garbage bags’ worth of stuff.

It was awesome.

But that’s the thing about stuff: It multiples like rabbits, especially when you have kids and have to deal with things like instantly-outgrown clothing and party goody bags (can we outlaw those please?). So I do a hazmat of my home every couple of years — and since casting all the junk out of your life is basically my favorite thing to do, I have trained myself to become ruthless.

Ruthless, I say!

Want to see some of my most embarrassingly ancient and/or hideous possessions, all of which were inexplicably difficult to let go of, and all of which are presently – thank god – sitting in a Goodwill somewhere in Agoura Hills?

This is an Abercrombie and Fitch tank top that I bought in college, and that at the time I thought was both painfully expensive (I’m guessing $25?) and absolutely perfect; so perfect that I gritted my teeth and bought it in blue, too. 20 years later, it is, shall we say, “inappropriately sized” (not to mention completely see-through and virtually unwearable)..and yet in my mind it remains “the perfect tank top.”

Its days as the perfect tank top are gone.

Good-bye, formerly-perfect Abercrombie and Fitch tank top.

These Anthropologie tunics looked – and I say this with zero humility – so great on me when I was pregnant.

See?! (Omg my pregnancy hair, RIP. And why did I stop wearing hats again?)

Except I am not currently — nor do I plan to be, like, ever — pregnant.

Ergo, I do not need to own these Anthropologie tunics.

These are booty shorts with rips in the front, and there is literally zero excuse for me owning these, now or ever. If it makes you feel better, I never *actually* wore them (as evidenced by the price tag that’s still attached to them). Crisis averted.

These cardigans were purchased at Forever 21 in the year 2007, because I was working as the HR manager of a mid-sized law firm and needed cardigans to make my very non-office-appropriate wardrobe sliiiiightly less offensive (I didn’t succeed, if you’re wondering). I wore them constantly, both while I had that job and afterwards, because they’re really great: perfect shape, nice colors, look good with lots of different things, etc.

They are also cardigans that I purchased at Forever 21 in the year 2007.

I feel like a decade is a pretty solid expiration date for a Forever 21 piece. All together now: Let it goooooooooo.

And here is a shirt that was my ex-husband’s. The arm fell off, and he gave it to me so I could “do something cool with it.” (You can see the dismembered arm; it’s hanging around the top of the hanger.)

I am not going to do anything cool with this shirt. Ever.

These were really cute yoga pants when I first purchased them 8,000 years ago. They are still comfortable, so I have overlooked the fact that they have, as my mother says, “had the biscuit.” They are ripped and faded and have a silhouette that reminds me of what was super hot back in 1994 (so…perhaps hot again? For the kids? Although perhaps less hot for me).

My hope is that their absence in my wardrobe will inspire me to dress less like an aging shadow of my teenage self. Fingers crossed.

Speaking of my teenage self: these Miss Sixty jeans were basically haute couture when I added them to my existing denim wardrobe of Paris Blues and Mavi. Could I cut them into shorts? Yes. But those shorts would have pre-faded thigh panels too, soooo…

#goodbye.

Update: While writing this post I thought “WAIT I ACTUALLY SHOULD MAKE THOSE INTO SHORTS” and ran out to retrieve my Miss Sixties from the back of my car. Remind me to actually throw things out before I write posts about throwing them out next time, please?

Gracias.