Who Knew Underwear Could Make You Cry?

A surprising side effect of all this COVID stuff is that I have been organizing things like crazy. Usually its nice to get rid of things you don't need, but I found that cleaning out my underwear/sock drawers kinda made me feel sad. Which is weird- right?

I've mentioned before that I've gained some COVID weight, so I found that a lot of things weren't fitting me correctly. Pair that with an old dryer that liked to make holes in everything (we got rid of it a few months back, but the damaged goods were still living in my drawer), and I was long overdue for this. I wasn't prepared for the feelings that cleaning these particular drawers would conjur up. I found old underwear that were easily fifteen years old. I couldn't fit into them anymore, but they were like happy memories. They were in that beginning period when my husband and I were first dating, no kids and free do to what we pleased. There were some that I knew I had bought for special occassions. There were some that can only be kindly classified as granny panties, from the times when I just felt like nothing was going right. Growing up- it was just me and my dad. Time spent with my mom was a big deal. And I remember that even when I was really little, she would always tell me that underwear needed to be fun. You can see from that pile above that I subscribe to that wholeheartedly. But looking through that pile as I was cleaning, I felt depressed. I felt stunted. I saw all the different sizes that I had been, I saw the remnants of my geek life blog (because everything about you had to be geeky to have one, right?), I wondered if my husband ever felt less attracted to me because I was practically wearing underoos. It shows all the times I tried to be someone I'm not. It was just all of these things. 

The sock drawer was about the same. Once I got rid of all the holey, no matched or ugly ones, I noticed that I don't have one solid color pair of socks. Not one. They're all patterns or holiday themed. Again, am I a child or an adult? (That blanket the pile is on is also result of a similar identity crisis I suffered in regards to my shirts. I was told I wore too many shirts with logos and I wasn't dressing age appropriately. So I got them made into a comfy blanket and now only wear solids, which feels very blah to me.)

Its natural to go through changes, but that doesn't mean you're always prepared for them. Was I prepared to cry over some undies and socks? No. But I know that cleaning those drawers out was necessary for me. Sometimes you just have to move on- even if it is just from one style of panties to the next.