COVID-19 Chronicles

Leisure World residents are living in historic times as the COVID- 19 pandemic unfolds around the world. Residents are welcome to share their experiences, observations, opinions and insight with their friends and neighbors in this occasional column. The deadline is Thursday for the following week’s publication. Email submissions to Ruth Osborn at rutho_news@lwsb.com. Submissions are subject to editing for clarity and brevity.

Purging Day

by Joan Rose

LW contributor

During this pandemic, while we slavishly adhere to the stay-athome rules, some of us have been so bored that we have actually gone to our closets, looked at the tangled mess within and thought, “I really need to clean this out.” What brave thinking!

Having nothing better to do, I, too, thought that purging my closet would give me something to do and give me some needed room in my closets. Then I realized that I could give a lot of my old clothes to charity, and I smiled at my sudden altruistic and generous nature.

So one Saturday morning, after having a good breakfast to give me strength, I grabbed a big plastic bin and a trash can and put them both by the closet door. Then I opened the door to one of my closets and as I stood looking at the contents, I became rather discouraged. What a mess. Where to start?

Some of the clothes that hung in my closet or were stored on the shelves in plastic bags were old and since I had lost weight, they were far too big for me. During my long life, I had lost and gained a great deal of weight and so I fell into the habit of saving the clothes that no longer fit. Some of them I had placed in plastic bags which were labeled accordingly as BIG CLOTHES, BIGGER CLOTHES and CIRCUS TENTS.

I looked at the bags and knew I had to be ruthless about my purging, so I grabbed the bags and tossed them into the plastic bin. Goodwill would love those. So far so good.

Now I had to really decide on the rest of the clothes that were hanging up. As I went though them one by one, I realized that I wasn’t only saving the clothes, I was saving memories. So then I had to ask myself a question. Did I really need to hang onto my cheap, black graduation robe that I wore at my college graduation in 1986? What am I saving it for? Another graduation? It went swiftly into the garbage can.

Then I came upon a sweater with big orange pumpkins on it that I wore on every Halloween day when I was working in an office 20 years ago. It was ratty and garish. Out it went.

There were more clothes hanging on the rod that were too big for me or just out of style, and they went into my charity bin. Then I looked at two well-worn bathing suits and two beach cover-ups hanging in my closet. I almost laughed at the thought of me strutting around pools or on the beach in these outdated bathing suits. Because my flabby legs now display purple-and-blue varicose veins and look like road maps, I knew that I hadn’t gone to the beach or anywhere near a swimming pool in years. I had no problem throwing those items out.

Next came the things that were on the shelves in the top of the closet and that is where it became more difficult. Somehow I had accumulated quite a few little trinkets that were now probably useless. I had saved some little cardboard and tin boxes with Christmas decorations on them, and of course, one never throws those out —except they had been in my closet for years and I had no use for them. Out they went.

Also in the closet were three of my Mom’s Barbie dolls dressed in lovely pastel gowns that my Mom had crocheted. They were wrapped in plastic wrap and I was keeping those, since Mom had passed away 20 years ago.

I took a small plastic bin down from the shelf and found it full of birthday cards that my Mom had sent to me and that I had saved. All things kept by me to pass on to my children. I placed it back on the shelf.

At the bottom of my closet, I had stored six large cardboard boxes with lids that held—what? I began to open one box and then I knew that I didn’t even have to look through them. They held memories, simply memories, that I couldn’t bear to throw out.

Exhausted, I sat down on my bed and looked at the partially empty closet with many colorful plastic hangers hanging jauntily on the pole. I felt relieved that at least I had removed a lot of the useless articles and old clothes, and my closet looked much neater.

Then the thought occurred to me that I have three other closets to go through and I sighed. If I get bored again, I know they will be waiting for me.