Monday, May 7, 2012

Cleaning Closets

Well, I did it!  On Saturday, I took a HUGE load of my now-too-big clothes to the consignment store.  I’ve been telling myself I would do this for a while now, but my schedule has just been so crazy between family, work, school, and church that I just hadn’t been able to get an appointment set to take everything in until this past weekend.  And boy, did I take a bunch of stuff in on Saturday…117 hanger’s worth to be exact!  I would have taken more, but that’s all I could squeeze into my little car.  I’ve already got a second appointment set up for this Thursday evening to take in the rest, and I’ve probably got just as much, if not more, that I’ll be taking in then in the second load.

It’s interesting, because the owner of the shop told me that she normally limits consignors to 25 pieces at a time to bring in, but because of the sizes of the clothing I was bringing in, she would let me bring in everything I had at once.  She said that she gets calls regularly from ladies looking for these sizes, but that she never has anything in stock to sell to them.  She said she’s never really had a consignor bring in much in these sizes before, so she was excited to get them in and to let her customers know they were available.

While I’m happy at the thought of selling all of these clothes at decent prices and without the hassle of a yard sale, (and hopefully, quickly!) it really got me thinking…Buying clothes in the sizes I used to need was really difficult, and I can understand why most women of that size don’t consign their items.  It’s because, typically, they’re not going to let go of a piece once they find it in their size!  If an event comes up that requires a certain article of clothing, a large plus-sized woman can’t just run out to the mall or department store and pick something up or run from store to store until they find the perfect garment.  At the size I wore a year ago, there were only 2 local stores I could walk in to in an attempt to buy clothes.  And with that, most of the things in one of those stores didn’t even come in large enough sizes and I could only buy from there once in a while.  So if I needed something and the one store didn’t have it, I was probably in trouble.  There are a couple of catalogues I occasionally ordered from, but then I had to pay extra for shipping, wait for it to arrive, and hope I ordered the right size, which was always a gamble. 

As I was at home preparing and sorting the second batch of clothes to take into the shop, I started to feel a little stressed over it.  A random though popped into my mind as I put a favorite shirt into the pile, “What will I do if I need to wear this and now it’s gone?  Am I making a mistake selling these clothes?”  That’s where I stopped myself in my thoughts with a startling realization.  I can get rid of these things because I will NEVER need them again!  They don’t fit me anymore, nor will they ever!  This isn’t some passing fad or temporary thing that I’m doing.  I’ve made (and continue making) changes that are going to affect the rest of my life and it feels great!

I have one last closet to sort through tonight, and once those things are out, the only clothes I will still own are the new, smaller ones I’ve bought in the last couple of weeks that actually fit me now instead of being so big they were falling off, like my old ones had been recently doing (although some of the newer ones are starting to get a little big already!).  I’ve also got a few random costume pieces I have from various theatrical productions I’ve been in, and my wedding dress.  (Oh, and a couple of bins of large winter clothes I can’t consign until the fall season). Lastly, I saved back three pieces, a pair of blue jeans, a shirt, and a pair of sweat pants that were all in the biggest size I had reached.  One of these days, when I reach my ultimate goal, I’ll have some fun taking photos of my “then” and “now” clothes, and maybe we’ll stuff my whole family into one leg of my old jeans or something like that!  In the meanwhile, I may not have arrived yet, but I’m definitely on my way!

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