I am quite a clothing pack rat. No, I am not a hoarder. My pack rat tendencies are pretty well contained. I won't let you look in my closets, but that's pretty much the only area taken over by my stuff. Yes, that was closets. I have 2/3 of the closet in the master bedroom, all of the closet in the guest room (though I moved a few of Vince's hoodies in there so it isn't all my stuff), and 3/4 of the closet in the smallest guest room. Did I mention dressers or Rubbermaid tubs? No? Well, let's just move on and pretend that I didn't say anything.
I started ordering clothing from catalogs several years ago because I found going to the stores depressing. All the cute clothes were too small and the stuff that fit was not cute. Not to mention that sizes I thought would fit were too small and I was having to go to sizes that made me feel really fat. Many of the catalogs for bigger ladies try to make us feel good by sizing things L, 1X, and 2X that would really be 1X, 2X, and 3X, if not bigger. So the numbers in front of the X weren't quite as depressing in the catalogs. However, I had the problem of ordering clothing without knowing whether it would fit or not. And I'm actually really bad at returning catalog orders if they didn't fit. I'd wash them, stick them in the closet, and pray that somehow it would fit other time.
I know there are much worse vices than having closets full of clothes. The saddest thing about my vice is that for more years than I care to admit, I have only worn a very small portion of the clothing that I own. There was a section of clothing in each closet that I would actually wear. It got to the point where I honestly didn't realize exactly what was in each closet. I knew what rotation of clothes I could/would wear. Occasionally I would try on something that caught my eye, look in the mirror, sigh, and put it back in the closet for something that I knew would fit me.
As I made progress on my journey, I didn't even think about wearing any of the other clothes that I had in my closets because I was so used to just grabbing the same things. One day, I pulled out a shirt that I had forget about and honestly can't tell you when I got, and put it on just to see how it fit. It fit me wonderfully and looked great! It was so exciting! I started grabbing more shirts to see how they would fit and discovered a whole "new" wardrobe of tops for me! There are only two bad things about this: 1. I am not finding pants that I can wear because everything I own in that category of clothing is WAY too big even when I cinch it up in a belt. 2. The "new" clothes are getting too big for me! Yes, I know...rough life having these first world problems. I keep wearing the "new" clothes even though they are getting baggy because I want to get a little wear out of them before I give them away.
So the next step is to go through the closets, dressers, and Rubbermaid tubs to see what I need to get rid of and to start buying actual new clothes, though I'm finding it hard to buy too much because I want to get even smaller. I will say that my co-workers are the best motivation to buy new clothes. Every time I wear something that fits me, I get so many compliments about how nice I look or how much weight I've lost. It makes me want to have all of my clothes fit everyday. I'm getting there. But just like my journey, this too will take time. :)
So I'll tighten my belt and continue moving on with my journey.
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