Goodwill Run #14

Ben moved into my apartment the week before the wedding.  Luckily, I have (now we have) a two-bedroom apartment and absorbing his one bedroom apartment was relatively easy.  For the first four minutes it was lovely and happy and all “yay, we live together!!”  Soon after, however, we got down to the dirty details.  To make a prolonged argument short, the next month basically boiled down to: “If I’m donating this to Goodwill, what are you willing to give up?”

Numero uno on the list of items immediately being taken to Goodwill was Ben’s forest green, faux leather Laz-Z-Boy reclining sectional.  What I did not expect was having to donate the ridiculously comfy, late 1980’s burgundy lounge couch that I had inherited from my sister, who had inherited it from my aunt, who had inherited it from my grandparents.  In all fairness, it did give up its living room floor space to a beautiful, heirloom hutch, but I was inconsolable for a good half of the afternoon, wallowing over the couch shaped hole in my heart.

It is a really pretty hutch.

It went back and forth like this for a while, both of us slowly giving up on things we had once held dear.  Finally, this weekend, in a bout of spring cleaning, I cautiously approached my closest.  It was time to share the space equally and give 38% to Ben (He’s a boy, that is a fair amount).  This was a big step. 

First to go was the dress that I wore for both my Senior year homecoming and the first college dance that I went to with husband dearest (aahh….).  Next, were a few other dresses leftover from high school dances, one poor summer dress choice that I only wore once and the dress I wore to a junior high Christmas concert.  I was only 3 garments in and even I had to admit that maybe a good closest cleansing was long overdue.

The next hour was spent removing somewhat questionable choices from my wardrobe.  In my defense, most of the bad decisions were made in my teen years.  Why I am still hanging on to them 8 years later may be another bad decision entirely.  Garment after somewhat neatly folded garment landed in the Goodwill bag: at least 2 shirts with hoods, 3 “Henley” shirts, 1 shirt with thumb holes in the sleeves (for those cold AZ afternoons?), too many way too see-through shirts. 

Remember these? Unfortunately, I do too well.

The Goodwill bag soon became over-flowing, my closet was looking slimmer and more grown-up and Ben excitedly received his newly vacated chunk of closet real estate. It was a win-win situation. Except maybe for Goodwill, but who knows… short sleeve t-shirts with hoods could totally come back in style.