Why I stopped my shopaholic ways

The Mountain (And not that guy from Game of Thrones)

The mountain of clothes that looked like they were about to break my bed was the huge flashing sign that I had too much stuff.  I read the section of Marie Kondo’s book about clothes.  I didn’t have time to read the rest of the book because I needed to tackle my closets.  I have two closets in my room: one regular size and one walk-in.  That should have been enough to hold all my clothes, but it wasn’t.  There were clothes hanging on the closet door, clothes hanging on the door to my bedroom and clothes stacked in the chair, not to mention whatever clothes were in the laundry.

I really wish I had the insight to take a picture of this clothes mountain, but part of me felt embarrassed for a number of reasons.  1) I obviously spent a ton of money, some of which I should have been saving.  2) There was no way I could possibly wear all these clothes, so I was being wasteful. 3) I felt greedy.  And that is a very gross feeling.  The best part of seeing all that I owned was I could see the complete picture of what was really there and learn the lesson to never do this again.

The Clean-Up (And the threat of suffocation)

I sorted through every single clothing item I owned, which took me two days. At the end of the first day, I had to push the clothes aside so that I could sleep on my bed.  I was a little afraid of the stack falling over and suffocating me, but I am here to write this story of a reformed shopaholic.  Actually, looking through the clothes was almost as eye opening as the giant pile.  Why did I buy this?  Oh, yeah it was on sale.  Where did I think I was going to wear this?  I wanted something in case I was invited to a fancy event. The reality is if I was really going to a special event, I pick an outfit especially from the event and probably borrow it from Rent the Runway.  When did I even buy this and where did it come from? I still don’t know.  Why do I have so many of these?  Here comes the double whammy: they were on sale and I was sad.  Those two elements can take down any shopaholic.  The clothes that I got rid of said as much about me as the clothes that I kept did.

I organized and put away the clothes I was keeping.  I had several bags and boxes to donate and a pile of barely worn or never worn clothes that I sold at a yard sale and online.  I thought that getting rid of so many of my clothes, probably two-thirds of the mountain, would cause me to panic.  My clothes were my security blanket.  I had them when I didn’t have anything else.  Clothes were my hobby and my comfort when I was going through a rough time.  Not having so many of them wasn’t frightening, it was freeing.  My room was significantly cleaner.  I could actually see the clothes I had, so I could wear some items that were forgotten in the chaos.  I also didn’t have so many things to take care of, so I wasn’t constantly tidying and organizing, giving me much appreciated free time.

The Present (Has Gregor Clegane been resurrected again?)

It’s been around two years since the mountain.  Did I end up filling my closets back up?  Thankfully, no.  In fact, I barely shopped in 2018. This year I brought a few items, (fewer than ten) mostly because I wore out some of my clothes and they needed to be replaced.  I still love fashion.  It was one of my first loves.  I look at clothes all the time for fun, but I don’t buy them.  I finally realized that shopping away my troubles was not a solution.