Tonight, I'm Cleaning Out My Closet

Dear Diary...

Well, I had a very unexpected and eventful weekend.  Friday night, I got a call from my mom asking if I wanted to bring the kids over Saturday and us all spend the night.  I was quite surprised.  My parents are foster parents, they have two children of their own living at home and three foster children, and their house is now a little crowded.  Adding 4 more people to the mix (Hubby usually stays home), is verging on insane.  I immediately thought sometime was wrong.

Nothing was wrong.  Two of the kids were going to be away, my sister was going to be at a basketball game all day, my dad was working a twelve hour shift on Saturday, so my mom thought it would be nice for us to go over there and spend some time.  Isn't that sweet?

I hadn't really planned on doing much.  Mainly laundry, and cleaning out my overfilled closet.  I decided I could get the laundry and the closet done before I went to my parent's house.  Well, I got the laundry done, and I got the closet unpacked.  I started doing some sorting, but I realized that the closet was too big of a job to do before I went to my parent's.

When I started unloading the stuff out from my closet Saturday morning, two things popped into my mind.  1) Where the heck did all this stuff come from?  and 2)  I may have some hoarder tendencies.  Seriously, I found stuff that I bought years ago, has never been used or open, stuffed away in the back of my closet.

I have a walk-in closet, but not a large walk-in.  It's big enough for me to walk in to, and then I have clothes hanging all around me.  There are shelves above the hanging space.  Then there's the floor.  That's it.  Nothing fancy.  Although I'm pretty sure that I've always had the impression that my walk-in closet was 8 times bigger than it really is...cause that's how much crap I had stored in there.

I have a California king size bed, and I managed to stack up clothing about 2ft high over half of it.  I didn't realize I had so many clothes.  I cleared out everything that no longer fits me hanging on the shelves, and decided that I need to set it aside ready to be bagged up.  Not to get rid of, because I will get back in to those clothes, but I just couldn't see the point in leaving all of those clothes on the hangers and taking up space.  Once those clothes were cleared out, I was so shocked to see how few clothes I now have left to chose from.  I have TONS of clothes that will fit me once I lose some of this weight - cute clothes, too.  What's left are the last few traces of the size 18 pants and dresses that I wouldn't part with when I got down to a size 16.  Thank all things holy I didn't, otherwise I'd be going to work in pj's or sweatpants.

I started going through the junk that was stored on the shelves and on the floor.  I mostly found purses.  Lots and lots and lots of purses.  I've never hidden the fact that I have a serious problem when it comes to purses.  I decided that some of them had to go.  But, as soon as I thought about getting rid of them, I started having a mini anxiety attack.  You think I'm kidding, don't you?  I'm not.  I seriously, hold my hand on the Bible, swear that I started getting light headed and breathing a little heavy when I was faced with deciding which purses were going and which were staying.  Ridiculous, isn't it?  But, I sucked it up and threw some out.  Four.  I got rid of four purses that definitely got their use, were tattered, and just no longer needed to be held on to.  That was a very huge step for me.  Hubby was very proud, although I knew he was hoping for a much larger number than four.  After the purse incident, I decided to stop and go to my parent's.  I left the piles of clothes on my bed, I left the rest of the clutter on the floor, and just left. 

My trip to my parent's was a nice one.  I spent the day chatting with my mom on Saturday, while the kids all played outside.  Sunday, I went and played bingo with my mom and my grandparents.  I haven't done that in forever.  It was nice to get out and do something like that, especially with my grandparents.  I don't see them hardly ever, and my both of them are getting ailments that are affecting their health.  I realized that I need to start seeing them more, they are both in their late 70s and I just don't know how much time I have left with them.

Thinking of my grandparents really got me thinking about life in general.  They are both in their late 70s.  Have led pretty healthy, active lifestyles.  My grandpa still does all the work on his house, and they both go out walking around several times a week.  I realized that if I keep going the way I'm going, I may not get the chance to see my 70s.  I may not get the chance to see my grandkids have kids.  It was a lot that hit me all at once.

I really have to make the most of my life.  That means cleaning out my closet - both literally and figuratively.  I've got to let go of the stuff I've been holding on to.  There's something inside of me that prevents me from letting the overweight me move on.  I've got to quit worrying about the past, worrying about what I did to make myself the way I am today.  I've got to start cleaning that crap out, and creating a new life for myself.  One that's healthy, active, and happy. 

So, tonight, I'm going to finish the task of cleaning out my closet.  I'm going to bag up the clothes that don't fit me and post a big sign on the bags that reads:  TO BE OPENED VERY SOON.  I want to eventually replace those bags with all of the size 18 clothes.  I want them out of my life.  I am the only one that can do that. 

Before yesterday's revelation, I didn't have a great weekend with my eating.  In fact, I had a very crappy weekend with my eating that will no doubt result in yet another gain on the scale this week.  I have no excuses.  Just a lack of willpower.  I feel horrible for it - both literally and figuratively.  I'm bloated and feeling miserable, and I also feel a niggling of guilt that I haven't been able to shake since getting home.  I have just 6 more days until the gym opens.  I can chose to just sit back and wait until the gym opens, or I'll start doing something before.  I'm not making any promises.  I'll just see what happens.  Now, though, I'm going to keep those bags stored in my mind.  One day, very soon, I will open those bags and replace the contents with the baggage I'm carrying around now.  I'm ready to let go. 

Till next time. ;)