I’ve been cleaning out my house for, oh, EVER now. How many times have I declared we were having a yard sale? {cough} Um, yeah…
I *really am* going to have one. Probably not until next spring, now that we’re hip deep in flag football and our Saturdays are spoken for until Christmas. (I kid you not).
So, I have already went through my clothes, vowing to purge all of the bigger stuff. And I did. I won’t hang onto it like I had in the past, for the “just in case I gain weight again” time. It’s going this time – for good. Sayonara! Arrivederci! Au revior! See ya! G’bye! No chance in H-E-double-hockey-sticks I’m gonna need you anymore, the weight is off for good!
Only, after I purged, everything laid in one, big, gigantic slob of a pile of clothes-way-too-big-for-me that sat pouting in a corner of my bedroom. Bad, Lisa, bad! I just never had the chance (or the will) to go through them, pile them just so, snap pictures, post them online.. workworkwork. Meh. Tonight, however, I dug in, allergies first. Yup, sneezed and sneezed and sneezed.. ACHOO! Dusty clothes are M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E. for someone with dust allergies.
As I was making piles in this size here, that size there, preparing to bag them up and free the corner of my room, I peered over at another stack I’d made. One that I’m reluctant to do anything with. The maternity pile.
(I totally just scared you all, didn’t I? No, I’m not expecting.)
I have held onto these for, what feels like, forever. How do I part with them? How do I get rid of them? For that matter, how do I begin getting rid of the clothes my Baby Dude has grown out of, too? There is no other after him, he is it.
With each child we have tubs of clothes, as they grow out, we take out the next size. We save for the next child what is in good condition. I have been saving Baby Dude’s clothes, just as I did his brothers’ and sisters’ clothes. But there is no “next child,” so there is no “next time” for my maternity clothes.
But I’m not ready to bag them up and part with them yet. It’s too… final.
In those clothes there are ones that have covered my bulging belly with many-a baby kicking through. Ones that have been a good “catch-all” for dribbles from my hungry, pregnant mouth. Ones that helped my belly make a good plate holder, or remote spot. Ones that made me feel pretty, even when I couldn’t see my toes. Baby clothes that have warmed my babies after a miserably cold bath, or covered their finger-like toes, or absorbed their newborn baby scent those first months. Ones I could’ve buried my nose in. Ones I can still almost smell them in.
How do I part with them? How do I say goodbye to them, to all of them and the memories they fill me with and the times they represent?
Until then, my bedroom corner will just have to contend with having a small, well-loved pile of maternity and baby clothes. Even if my back, my body and brain have said “no more,” my heart can’t seem to commit to it just yet.
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