The Purge

Recently, I went through a clothing purge. I went through my closets and tried to throw away all the items that meant nothing to me. But it was super hard. And even though I threw away 5 bags of clothes, I feel like I still didn't do much damage.  It was incredibly frustrating.

I don't know a single person who LOVES throwing old clothes away. There isn't any person in the history of existence who is like "Oh, I haven't worn this shirt in like a year, therefore I will throw it away, no questions asked."

Every person ever has some pile of unexplainably important clothes. No one is NOT a clothes hoarder. Sorry dudes, it's a definite FACT. We all do it. We all have secret boxes of secret clothes that we keep because we just LIKE them. We hide them under beds, in boxes or at our parents' house. But make no mistake: We all keep terrible clothes just BECAUSE.

I recently thought I had beat this crazy Clothes Demon. I collected five bags of clothes, hauled them into a donation bin (methinks it's more of a dumpster) and declared myself CLEAN.

But then I came home to see that I really hadn't made a difference. Even without all the clutter of Old Navy throw-aways, I could see clearly the things I had consciously decided to KEEP. It was not pretty. 

First up was the full box of "nostalgia shirts. I LOVE my shirt collection. I love them all. But my fave is from my sophomore year of college when my friend Kim and I were inseparable to the to point where someone made a T-shirt that I would reluctantly treasure:

Then there was a store that opened at the Mall of America that made hilarious and witty shirts I just HAD TO HAVE as a teen. They were kind of sassy and naughty and my parents would never have let me wear them in house, which is why they were so awesome. They were my first "I'm a college independent person" shirts that cost like $85 and I've decided that they will ALWAYS be relevant if I can just get skinny enough to wear them:

I'll never be able to throw these guys away.

Then there's my ridiculous pants collection. I threw away 6 pairs of leggings and 8 pairs of jeans, And yet somehow, I'm still left with: 

Yeah that's 1 billion pairs of jeans and 6 pairs of leggings (plus the pair I was wearing while taking the picture.) That's too many pants, y'all.

So now I have a closet full of too many pants and several old shirts that I cannot wear.

How did this happen? How do I accumulate so many clothes without them being, like, clothes I WEAR? But more importantly, how am I supposed to get RID of all these clothes? Can I keep all my old college bar crawl tees, or do I have to throw them away? Can I hold on to those 4 dresses that fit me like a glove when I am 20 pounds lighter, or do I have to blast them out of my closet? 

How do you guys keep your closets under control??