Cleaning out my closet.

Sometimes I get burst of claustrophobia, I just feel like I am being smothered.  That is when I realize I have too many things.  What happens when you have too much stuff?  Well it stresses you out, because you have so many things to worry about.  Think about a time when you were maybe on vacation without your cell phone, tablet, lap top, anything but what you needed right then that day.  Maybe at the beach, or out hiking.  How free did you feel?  It isn't a great feeling.  Not having to worry about anything except for what it right in front of you.  Well if you have too much stuff gathering dust around your house, you know what I mean.  It begins to weigh you down.  You have to make sure each and everything is safe.  So if you take some time to down size and get rid of some of those things, you can feel a bit lighter. 

So I decided to go through my shoes, I have a lot of shoes, but nothing close to what a lot of women have. We always have more than we think we do, trust me, go find them all and count them. More than you imagined.  I have always loved shoes, and I have cleaned them out before, but I always add more to them.  But this time, I wanted to take a step that is a lot harder, getting rid ones that have memories attached to them. Like the ones I wore when I got married.  Or the ones I wore out to the clubs in my single life.  Or maybe ones that someone else bought for me. I need to let these go, I don't need them to remember the events.  And if I did, then maybe the event isn't worth remembering. You can let all sorts of things crowd your brain that need to be cleared out. Maybe it is the memories that cause the claustrophobia, more than the things. I hope not, how am I supposed to clean my brain out.

Either way I need to down size my shoe collection, I have about ten pairs picked out, I need to look again, maybe I can get a few more. Then maybe some of the memories will go with them. 

Also, I am trying to decide if I am too old to wear some of them. Like the 5 inch black suede mules, with faux fur trim.  Really, does a 37 year old mother of three need a pair of shoes like that?  I am thinking no, maybe if my husband had some sort of shoe fetish, which he doesn't. I also have a few pairs of tennis shoes I can do without, and some casual dress shoes, with clunky heels, I don't need the extra weight from my shoes keeping me down right now.  I don't need anything extra keeping me down.

I have also gotten to the point of working out that I really care about what I eat.  I don't want to work so hard only to throw it away with what I eat. It will only be a matter of time that I become even more careful about what I eat. I have let the full fat salad dressing slide by, but soon it will be fat free, if any at all. A little butter here and there will become no butter any where. But it will take time, I don't want to rush things.  I didn't gain all this weight over night, I don't need to change everything overnight.  Making too many changes too fast is what gets a lot of people into trouble. You can't start working out, and depriving yourself all at once, that is too big of a shock to your system. You will not succeed that way.  I know losing weight is going to be a very slow process, to get to my goal it will take at least a year. Which is fine.  Time goes by really fast, and it will be a year whether I work out or not. So why not take the step each day to get better and healthier? 

I have also started taking time each day to work on my goal of being a fabric designer.  The only person that can stop me, is me.  So I taking time to draw and create on the computer. It is important to work with shapes and colors. It feels good to have a direction to focus on.

So a little at a time I am working on things, downsizing, de-cluttering, and getting healthy all the way around.  Ridding my life of self doubt and self loathing.  Two things I do not have room in my closet for.