Closet Memories

Recently, I was spring cleaning the closet in my bedroom. Filtering through clothes that hadn't been worn within the last year, shoes that had become too beaten up, papers that had been stashed away. I finally gave up on those pants that were from my high school years that, at the rate I'm going, I will never fit into again. All of the items I went through had fond memories attached to them. But I got rid of three garbage bags full of artifacts that had were really only memories.

My sister came over to see if there was anything she wanted before I took them to a thrift store. She happily snatched my high school jacket that had made me look like a punk/emo kid because it was "in" and she'd wanted it for years. When I told my husband I'd given it to her, he got sad because he like it on me. Apparently I look too much like a "mom" non with "mom jeans" and the "mom hair cut" (my quotes not his), and I don't look like the cute little I was six years ago. And you know, it's okay. No, I don't appreciate the pouch of baby fat that still clings to my stomach, the fact that glasses are much cheaper than contacts, or that I can't get my hair highlighted really more than once every two years--going darker is much easier and going all blonde would look awful. But it's okay. Honestly, I'm alright.

My birthday is coming up next month and I'm actually starting to feel like "Mom" and it's not a bad thing. I'm not the little girl I used to be. Adults talk with me like an adult! I'm not some punk teenager who knows nothing about anything. I've done my taxes. I'm not afraid to call someone in the government or around my community--though dealing with bureaucracy is annoying.I've kept another human being alive for four years! That's something right?

I've done things relatively recently that I would have never been able to do when those jeans had fit. My hair may not be as blond, but I did finally get my curl back from after being pregnant (my son stole all of it for two years). I graduated college and have been published. I've had more thoughts for more poems and novels than I ever have, and their only growing.

But getting rid of the old clothes and airing out the moth memories to make way for the new adventures wasn't the only thing that was enlightening. I found old stories that I'd written way back in the sixth grade when I started writing what is now known as "Angela's Story." (It now looks nothing like what it did back then.) I found "Rebecca's Letters" that and clips of "Cassy's Story" when she was "little" in my mind. The nostalgia was intoxicating and I couldn't help but laugh and remember those good times. These stories, making them, reading my friends', and having pirates get drunk off of fermented Root Beer, These were the things I want to remember. Not my jean size. Not the aches of high school or of the hurt of friends. These stories and the happy stories behind them  are what really matters. They are what I kept. You never throw any of your writing away, no matter how horrible and bad it is, keep it because you will see how you've grown, how your penmanship has changed.

Whatever journal or blog or cuneiform script you have, you're writing holds so many more memories than most of the things hidden in your closet. And these are more often the dearer ones too.