My ‘Running Away’ Jar

Three sizes of clothing (left to your imagination) taking up every inch of what’s supposed to be a couple’s closet. Not as many as yesterday and half as many as last year. Some for hacking around, some for running around and others for those special occasions that never seem to happen anymore … but I might need them someday. When the heck did I buy new ones never to be worn before cleaning those out to donation bins – again?

I should’ve just put that money in my “Running Away” jar – a stash of cash just in case I ever want to run away. Hey – you never know.

Purses I’ll never carry but too cute to pitch sit limply on a shelf, after all, maybe I hid cash in them that I haven’t found yet. It’s been known to happen. There are out of style shoes I’ll never wear (maybe) and my last dog’s crate because I may want another pet “some day.” A headboard that matches my bedroom suit but doesn’t fit my new bed; a basket of electronic gadget boxes that as soon as I pitch I’m going to need; and various sized containers of family memorabilia spanning years of lifetime(s), because, after all, the older those get the more valuable (to me) they are and each new year adds to them.

Oh my gosh. What the heck else could I possibly fit in here? How did I fit all of this in here? Every time I close the door I wonder if I can close the door. Its contents fit together like one of those mind puzzles. Giving credit where credit is due it’s all labeled and stacked and reasonably accessible if you don’t count the door being ever so slightly ajar.

Closets are the nightmare of any moving day. I hope to not have any more of those (don’t we all), but packing a closet is when you realize how much you’ve saved for a “just in case” day that hasn’t come in all the years you’ve prepared for it – but it might, it could – ‘just in case’ it does.

It takes more boxes to pack my bedroom closet (clothes not included) than my entire living room, but on moving day that’s the last thing I’m going to take time or mental energy to sort through. I mean, that’s a lot of time-consuming concentration and more boxes than I could begin to spare throwing away. So I pack and take it with me along with a promise to whittle it down when I get there.

When you pack to move, closets are the last thing you consider and by the time you get to them you have a house so full of packed boxes you’re convinced you must surely be “almost done” packing. Then you open that taken for granted closet door and could swear it’s morphed into a life of its own, growing things as if by osmosis while you slept the last however-many years. If I wanted to run away I couldn’t because I couldn’t carry my closet.

When you finally get to your new place and keep the promise you made to go through closet paraphernalia, seeing all of the old reminders is like another gift at Christmastime after you thought all of the gift-giving was done. You fondle them and find yourself with almost forgotten but familiar smiles on your face as you gingerly pack them back, better this time, for their new niche in your new closet … you’re sure they’ll fit. Where did all of those useless clothes come from, anyway?

I’m finally learning the habit of donating clothes. I could fill another closet with all the clothes I donated last year. After all, I have to make room for the really important stuff. I can always borrow from my Running Away Jar to buy new clothes, which is a fun thing to do and since I’m not going anywhere without my closet.

 

Written in response to WordPress Daily Prompt, Closet.