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I must admit, I have a lot of clothes. My clothes take up only half of our rather small bedroom closet, but I have a roll around portable closet stuffed full in the basement. And I have only worn one suit out of all the clothes stuffed in that portable closet since we moved into our house a year and a half ago. My problem is I only wear a small percentage of the clothes that I have. I need new clothes for work, but it is hard to see why when you look at my abundance of clothes. I have four main categories of clothes –the stuff I wore once, the stuff I cannot wear, the stuff I used to wear, and the stuff I wear now.

The "stuff I wore once" takes up most of my portable closet in the basement. The bulk of the space is taken up by my wedding dress and several bridesmaid dresses. I cannot decide if I should keep or sell my wedding dress. There seems to be no reason to keep it, yet it is symbolic and holds memories. I cannot just pitch it. I would have to sell it or find someone who would love it like I do. And what do you do with bridesmaid dresses? They are also a one time wear item that ends up in the back of every girl’s closet. Maybe I will get creative one of these days and make a patchwork quilt out of them like I read about in a magazine once. I also have several suits that I have worn to a handful of job interviews that I keep tucked away just in case they are needed again.

The "stuff I cannot wear" consists of the tops and jeans that are a bit too tight. But there is nothing wrong with them, so why get rid of them? After all, I will one day lose that 20 pounds and it will all fit again. It will be like having a brand new wardrobe! I also have several clothing items that I bought, worn, washed, and then could never wear again due to shrinkage. I am quite tall and many shirts have become too short for me after their first wash. Perhaps those would belong in the previous category.

The "stuff I used to wear" still gets worn every once in a while. Mostly it is flannel shirts and oversized lounge wear from my college days when grunge was cool. Once again, there is nothing wrong with them, so why get rid of them? I still wear the flannels once in a while when I am chilly in the house or when I do yard work in the spring or fall. But I would never wear these clothes in public. They just are not in style anymore. Maybe that is a good reason to get rid of them?

The "stuff I wear now" is basically business casual clothes for work. I wear them until they are worn out and need to be thrown away due to split seams, worn fabric, broken zippers, or faded color. When something is thrown away, I always seem to replace it with something similar. My work attire is boring and seems more mandatory than stylish. I would like to add more versatility to my closet, but there simply is not enough room to add more clothes to my wardrobe. Perhaps if I cleared out the old clothes and began to build a new "stuff I wear now" category I could add some more wearable and stylish clothes to my closet.