Opening Drawers
I am never home.
Cleaning out my closet, finding old gems, or creating space for new finds, is always my first self assigned activity when I am home for any extended amount of time. I rarely, however, ended up giving much away, finding some possible usage for each unworn item.
As a dangerously extraverted person, for better or worse, I am completely restless when left alone. For as long as I can remember, I’ve kept my schedule packed, and whatever moments are not filled with extracurriculars, sports practices, or part-time jobs, I am with my friends. As my family says, I utilize our apartment in the East Village of New York City as merely a storage place, for my clothes, and at least sometimes myself.
On the floor of my closet, I looked up to see photo albums from my parents’ wedding, baby rain boots on the shelves above me that I’d forgotten were still there, and I began to sort through my drawers of clothes. Pulling all the clothes out drawer by drawer, I gaze at the mountain of fabrics in front of me, towering above my eye level.
Before the quarantine that has come as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, I cannot remember a day where I had not seen my friends, or at least participated in an activity outside the house.
I made the decision that this time I will truly think about how the clothes make me feel, if I love them, and if they are benefitting my wardrobe in any way, I would keep them. But otherwise, it was time to let them go.
When I came back home from Northwestern, I immediately texted my friends to see who could come with me to get the everything bagel with cream cheese that I had missed for months. A naive and privileged thought that this would be a possibility, but I, along with many of my peers, had simply believed returning to the City would mean spending time with my close high school friends and introducing them to my college friends that also resided across the five boroughs. Despite the mask and gloves I had adorned on the plane, I had somehow still not accepted the fact that upon my return, things were not going to be normal. Reality struck, as it did for most people, after being told about the initial 14-day quarantine. We would all be alone, inside, and without distractions.
A white ribbed off-the-shoulder Brandy Melville top. I bought this specifically for a friend's black-light party in high school, I remember feeling frustrated because, while the shirt was cute, the immediate sweat stains were not. Give away.
Sitting on my couch that night - after facing the harsh reality that bagels with my friends and leaving my suitcase fully packed on my floor while gallivanting around the East Village on the night of my return was not going to be possible - I realized how unfamiliar I felt in my own apartment. My parents had both moved apartments after their divorce, and while this was years ago, I realized I had never fully familiarized myself with either of my new living spaces. It was then that I began to think about the things in my life I had been able to ignore or put off as I distracted myself by existing almost purely in the outside world.
A pair of Levi’s that hadn’t fit me since my freshman year of high school, but I told myself one day would fit again. In fact, there was a water-softened movie ticket from the premiere of Inside Out in the pocket, likely from the last time I’d worn them. Taking a deep breath I walked into my sister’s room, gifting them to her with the air of mourning and acceptance.
Being in quarantine disables the possibilities of usual livelihood distractions, and forces you to engage with what you may have otherwise ignored, to sort through your thoughts, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and cope with them internally.
As I plucked more items off the pile I allowed myself the time to truly think about their usage in my life, a transparent honesty that can only be reached through an unrushed, uninterrupted process.
There are no emotional bypasses, no parties, or sports games, or shopping excursions. The loneliness that is inevitable during this time forces us, together as individuals experiencing this as a society, to face our feelings, even the ones that we’ve folded into dark corners of our mind, head-on.
I laugh as I struggle to give away the shirt I’d worn when I had my first kiss, despite it being years since I’d last put it on. My eyes continue to dart questioningly towards the give away pile where I’ve placed a bar mitzvah sweatshirt of a friend I’ve since grown apart from. Sometimes getting rid of old clothes feels like getting rid of old parts of yourself. Our instincts often lead us to hold onto things we think have built the person we are today, when in reality we have outgrown them. Growth itself often means letting go.
As the days of quarantine rolled into weeks, and now months, I have found myself sorting through the thoughts and realities that I have always been able to push deep into the back of the drawers of feelings that make up my brain. And rather than cutting off their air, I have begun breathing into them.
Joyously I find a Dylan’s Candy Bar shirt stuffed into the corner of my bottom drawer that I had never felt fit in the way it was meant to, but now is the perfect flattering tight tank. I move it to my top drawer where I keep the shirts I wear most.
By opening drawers I had distracted myself from, a compartmentalized reality of my own brain, I have discovered things that without my awareness had been preventing the creation of space for mental growth. From forgiving myself for moving on from toxic past friendships, to working towards truly accepting the reality of my parent’s divorce, and allowing myself to unravel the fears that prevent me from opening myself up to emotional relationships with significant others.
Change is hard to accept. Style changing is not excluded from this. While it is exciting to find yourself increasingly aware of a personal style that allows you to feel both at home and confident in your clothes, accepting that the clothes you love independently may not fit into an evolved form of your style may be hard to accept. It is time to let go of my fraying jean miniskirts.
This is not to say that simply by opening the drawers within your mind that they will automatically become clean space for an evolved version of yourself, but merely that by taking this extra personal time to face the parts of yourself that you remain attached to simply out of an inability to face what letting them go might mean.
After I have moved away the give away pile, I stare at my now neatly organized, love filled drawers. There is now room for me to fill them with new and exciting finds, to grow my wardrobe and my personal style, and to appreciate each item I already have for what it truly means to me.
It is ultimately a process of acceptance. Whether I’ve chosen to recognize them or not, the corners of my mental closet shape who I am. By slowly choosing to face them without distractions, I feel more powerful and confident in myself than I have ever been. Granting myself the opportunity to feel things, to work through pieces of my life that hurt to even think about, or pieces that simply were hard for me to accept, has left me feeling in control. I am making myself the promise that in the future, beyond the days of COVID-19, I will grant myself the space and time to truly sort through my emotional closet.
Taking a deep breath, the air feels light and fresh. I close my drawers.