Now that I'm back in my home space after nearly a year in a very minimalist space and am slowly recovering from burnout (giving up helps), my urge to clean up my space is irrepressible. I also have a little more energy to devote to it, since I have given up on my career, so this is working out slowly but well.
One of my problems with choosing not to keep things is my emotional / strong memory attachments to them. (Another is my inability to remember why I kept a thing and the urge to save it anyway just in case I remember later why I kept it, but we'll talk about that some other time.) So I decided that I would take pictures of the things I am tempted to keep not because I use them but because they are tied to something else. Then I'll write about them and have an online memorial to look at even when the item in question has moved on to a new home or a new use.
Today's is this red Donald Duck sweatshirt. I never cared for the image, but my beloved aunt K gave it to me in my youth. It was in heavy rotation (basically because I only had maybe two sweatshirts until college) once I outgrew my most favorite thick, amazing black sweatshirt with the random Italian writing and the day-glo neon colors that I adored and saved for decades.
The memory attached to this is that my mom in her unflagging (but mostly futile) attempts to get me to care about clothing and my appearance always said red was a great color on my. There is a photo of me wearing this sweatshirt being hugged with obvious affection by my incredibly adorable and young-looking mother as she was recovering from a nearly-deadly illness (maybe during a family birthday celebration???). Because of my connection of this sweatshirt with the generosity of my aunt and the love and affection of my mother, I have carried it to another state and through 14 moves (if you count the 8 back-and-forths for college undergrad). I have not worn it in decades, but I haven't been able to give it up.
Until now. It's very well preserved and is Disney, so I decided to donate it instead of recycle it. Hopefully someone else will look great in red and be hugged affectionately by someone else while wearing it.
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