Clothing War Zone

This morning I awoke to find that all my recently washed clothes were missing from the mini-mountain they formed on my basement floor. I started to panic...hadn’t my Dad threatened to throw them out if I didn’t put them away? In the fog of my morning sleepiness I vaguely remembered some admonishment of the sort, but I couldn’t be sure. I shook awake my sister, demanding an answer to where all the clothes had went--but she was none the wiser. After some vigorous calling of both my parents and house searching, I ventured outside in my short-shorts and low and behold, there they were dumped in a trash bag and thrown on my porch--looking crumpled, cold, and neglected. Why had my dad “thrown them away”? I have to go back a bit to explain. The clothes had gone through the traditional cycle of being thrown down the shoot (yes, we have a laundry shoot), washed in several loads, and then stuffed into 2-3 baskets, that then sat for about a week. At that week point, my Dad deemed it necessary to dump all the clothing out of the baskets and onto the basement floor--and after the clothing sat on the floor for 2 days he “threw it away.”

If someone were to ask me the topic of deepest contention in my family, I would say it was the cleanliness of my sister’s and my clothing. My Dad can’t stand it when we don’t put away the laundry (which we generate quite quickly), my mom is constantly yelling at us to clean up the clothing strewn about our room, and they both find ways for us to get rid of clothing--as my Mom is fond of saying, “quality over quantity!” In short, they think we have too much of it (which we do) and can’t understand why we are both so drawn to clothing (and why we always want more).

The thing is, I kind of agree with them--I do have way too much clothing, but it always feels like I have no clothing as well. I can’t really remember when my love of clothing and style started to manifest--but I think it stems from my Grandmother who shares my passion for clothing. In middle school I loved looking through copies of 17 Magazine, which evolved into Vogue (and their website which I guiltily spend way too much time on) the New York Times style section. With the discovery of thrift shops and all of my Mom’s old clothing in the basement, it became so easy to just acquire more and more. Even if a shirt on its own is just ok, the more you have, the more unique outfits you can make..and the cycle just repeats. But the question really is, when do you have enough. Currently, my room is taken up with two pretty sizable dressers (if it’s not apparent, my sister and I share clothes), two bins of sweaters, and a pile of clothes on the floor. Weather I like it or not, they subtly take over, sucking away all my space and sanity--because if I don’t clean them immediately then they slowly pile up and up, transforming my room into an unrecognisable war zone.

It’s one thing for me to say all of this, and it’s another thing for me to do anything about it. No matter how much getting rid of some of my clothing would make my life easier, it’s hard to bring myself to do it. That’s not to say that I don’t ever get rid of stuff, I do, but it usually is the clothing that has been sitting in the back of my closet for like five years--never the still large amount of clothing that I wear...or consider wearing...or can’t bear to get rid of because of the sentimental value. It’s a very first world problem, and sometimes I wonder if it’s even bad at all that I have a lot of cheap, yet cute clothing. I’m young, no one needs to be impressed by my sophisticated clothing. It’s merely a way to express myself--and the more “material” I have to do that, the more creative I can be. So, any thoughts? Is having too much clothing a bad thing? Or for the time being am I ok to live in excess?