Something has me mystified. 

Life has many existential questions that have been pondered down the ages… 

What are we doing here? 

Why is the sky blue? 

Where do we go when we die? 

Does anyone know the secret to not spilling something on a white top? 

I’d like to add a couple of my own big questions to this list. 

Well, more than a couple, but I’ll try and stay focussed. 

Why are my top drawers harbouring items that are clearly past their prime? 

In my wardrobe, the top drawer is where my undies live. (Turn back now if you must, dear reader, I will understand.) 

In my grandmother’s chest of drawers, which now lives next to my bed, the top drawer is home to my pjs. 

Both these receptacles of everyday attire share an odd habit. They refuse to let go of anything; well, not without one hell of a fight. 

Were I to go to either top drawer right now, I know that I’d find holey undies, undies with frayed seams, pj pants whose elastic has changed its metabolic composition, threadbare sleep tees and other former garments that have no business taking up precious space among their newer, fully intact neighbours. 

Why? 

Why aren’t the holey undies and decades-old pjs in the bin? 

Whhhhy? 

I did a month long clear out of my wardrobe at the start of 2015 and culled a massive amount of clothing. You can read about my #hoistthehangers adventures here, here and here. 

The first thing I did was take every single item out of my wardrobe, and hang it on the trusty Hils Hoist. It nearly collapsed under the weight of everything I had stuffed in there! Over the next month, I ditched almost half these hangers. 

I remember counting my undies collection and being utterly stupefied by the total. 

I had FIFTY PAIRS! (Why is it that we call underpants pairs? So many questions!) 

Who needs that many pairs of jockettes? 

Not me. 10 would be admirable, 14, more than sufficient, but 50, that’s over six weeks’ worth, without doing any laundry…. ay carumba. 

I culled from 50 down to a still ridiculous 30 if I remember rightly. 

You’d think I would have learned my lesson by now. 

As I type, I am wearing undies with a severely tattered waistband. The culprits survived the 2015 cull, but they probably shouldn’t have. They are from Target. They are light grey. Got ’em in a five pack. 

Directly in front of me, there is a pile of freshly washed, folded clothing. At the bottom of the pile, there is a pair of pj pants with the elastic literally hanging out of disintegrated waistband, and at least two pairs of undies that have seen better days. Yet there they sit, waiting to go back into my top drawers. 

Mysterious stuff. 

Will I ever conquer the top drawers? Or ditch the things still hanging in the wardrobe that I don’t wear? I want to, at least I think I do. So why don’t I? Why haven’t I? 

Maybe my grandma’s chest of drawers is imbued with her Depression Era hoarder’s spirit? 

Stuff. We have to own it, not the other way round. 

For now, I think I’ll try the one in-one out strategy, which means two pairs of holey undies and two formerly intact pj pants need their marching orders. 

 

Have you solved the mystery of your top drawer? Tell me how you did it, please! 

 

Annette xx