The Flip Side

A red leather jacket for nothing. An antique Limoges platter for pennies. A classic navy blazer from the fashion design firm where my mother once worked-priceless. All great finds on my thrifting quests. 

But what about the flip side of thrifting? The giving away of things I no longer need or use but which still have wear, utility, and purpose in them for someone else.

I donate a great deal to Goodwill from household items to clothing and shoes. At least twice a year, in the spring and fall, I go through my closets. I not only change out clothing based upon the time of year and accompanying changes in weather, but also remove items that need to go. Sometimes it is easy to pitch things onto the give-away pile. At other times I feel attached to some item unconnected to need or frequency of use. I make the excuses to myself that all begin with, “someday….” There is a pile for these articles in my sorting process: the “I am not sure” pile. Most often, after taking the full inventory of what I am keeping, the need to let go prevails over acquisitive attachment. 

I was going through my closets making the changes for the long, cold Wisconsin fall and winter months after we returned from South Dakota in early October. I got to thinking as I discarded, rehung, and stored, that my life has been a lot like sorting closets, especially this past year. I have found myself hanging on to aspects of my life that had grown too tight to contain my growth, as well as a daily routine that no longer fit, because in some ways my life had shrunk. Had I lost weighty responsibilities? Or was it just that my view of myself and my life shriveled because I was no longer needed and useful in the same way?

I took a break for lunch and a cup of well-earned coffee.  What parts of me, I wondered, can be placed in the trash, there being no further utility? I had eventually, but far too slowly, learned to let go of caring so much about how I looked on the outside. In recent years I have discovered myself focusing more on how I appear on the inside. Letting the person I am show more, warts and all, unadorned for the approval of others, means superficial concern about appearances no longer fits me. Clearly the never-satisfied vanity foisted on women in my culture could go, and good riddance. On the other hand, guilt over loving beautiful clothes definitely needed to be bagged up and left at the curb. I have been researching my mother’s career in the fashion industry for a future book. I joyfully discovered this fascination I have with style is in my blood and fits me perfectly as an acceptable outlet for artistic expression. Heels and lipstick, hats and a well arranged scarf, fail to conform to the fitness fascist, suburban uniform of athleisure wear. But they suit me just fine and I’m learning to wear what inspires me, unapologetically. 

In the end, though, clothes themselves, are more about style than substance. The season of my life has changed, requiring a winnowing of thought and feeling.

For a significant part of this year I have struggled with the sense that I have been cast aside as so much refuse for removal when utility and purpose can still be found in my years of life experience. I knew my law practice would end one day, and truth be told, on the painful days, I longed for it. I just did not expect to find myself discarded quite yet when I was doing some of the best work of my career. The bouts of grief and doubt grow fewer as the distance expands between me and my past, but the last vestiges of my caseload mean the reminders remain. Maybe it seems undignified to some, but I can still be seen rifling through the waste bin searching for what is still useful about my old life. In all honesty it wouldn’t be the first time I rescued treasure from the curb and gave it a new life, a new home. Wisdom and understanding may have become a bit old fashioned as far as notions go, but I find they have a classic, practical appeal. I think I’ll keep what I have salvaged in that regard for these qualities have universal utility.

What about the people I leave behind? Some of them, a very few, are toxic, and need to go. Most of the others, even if I do not see them again, will be recycled and repurposed, for I know they bring continued value in the sphere of their own lives. Thankfully, there are a few gems so perennial in the gift of their friendship, that I believe I shall never see the need to part with them.

Each season in my life has required a sifting, a sorting, a winnowing. As the years have passed, and more of what I thought I needed to be has worn away, this process has come more naturally. Each new storyline I imagine as I write is imbedded with bits and pieces of me, restyled into tales of honesty and authenticity if I muster the courage to be vulnerable. The changing, hard as it is, indicates growth, which is itself a sign of life. A re-imagined life means claiming the treasure in what remains of what went before.  A life re-cycled is a life re-purposed.