Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

This weekend, I had a lot of time and an empty house so I decided to tackle a few tasks for me – tasks that would make me feel more comfortable, more satisfied, more content I guess.

Laundry was a big one. I have a lot of laundry packed in IKEA bags. I had off-season items that needed a wash. And in the space between seasons when you need everything, it seemed like a good time to to launder.

Hand in hand with that was the digging out of my closet. Aside from all the laundry piled against the accordion doors, the closet has been commandeered to store bedding. So I freed that bedding, scoured the closet and tried to figure how to make the accordion door open more easily so I could use the space effectively.

In between lugging bags of laundry to the basement, washing, drying, and lugging back upstairs, I did some sweeping and mopping action, dusting, threw away a ton of crap, and reclaimed half my floor space.

The cats are perplexed, but enjoying the space.

Now I have three large loads of folded laundry that needs to be put away tomorrow (I needed a day of rest) and I’m pledging to fill at least one IKEA bag with clothes to donate.

Another task is to gather than “memory” tee shirts that I want to keep, but not wear – mostly concern shirts, but also a few event shirts. I also want to gather my holiday seasonal shirts and put all of these together in an attic dresser drawer so I can find them. I have a cute Halloween teeshirt that I bought in 2002 at Target. Because I wear it once or twice a year, it is in fine condition. But it gets lost. Same with my one fancy summer shirt.

(This list is really for me, but feel free to read along.)

Clothing in the Growing Up Years

When I was growing up, clothing was sort of catch as catch can. When we didn’t have much money (because my Dad was a gambling addict), we didn’t have much clothing. One of my primary sources of nice clothing was my Grandmonster as part of the grooming, but I didn’t know that at the time. He and my grandmother would scold me when I didn’t “take care” of those purchases, but I was a child – what did that even mean? I was quite aware that they treated me differently, they never bought clothing for my younger brother. So it felt weird.

Looking back, I see that things around clothing, food, etc fell to the wayside in third grade when my mother had a brutal experience. She changed completely and lost all interest or capacity to get us breakfast, do the laundry, etc. I was eight and my brother was six, left to our own devices with no guidance on any of it. Sure we could pour milk over cereal, however clumsily, but packing lunches was a challenge. Laundry. ‘Taking care’ of clothes was beyond us.

What I learned in that period of time was to scrounge, conserve, and find workarounds. I signed us up for free school lunches, I figured out the washer, I kept every scrap of clothing I had as long as possible because something tattered and clean was better than nothing at all. As soon as I could get a job, I was spending the money on clothing and food for the household.

I also learned to just scramble through it all because no one taught me any of this. It felt good when I had my laundry freshly washed and could put together some semblance of an outfit, but I didn’t understand how to stretch that feeling or skills.

One of my saddest memories was in Seventh Grade – things were very financially tight. I started junior high with my elementary school wardrobe. That’s incredibly awful from a social point of view, but also because I was starting to morph from scrawny kid to not so scrawny adolescent. My mother and I walked to Hill’s Department Store where I found two pairs of store brand probably shoddily made ‘jeans’ made from a fake denim material. I begged and my mother let me buy both, probably around $15-20 total. Two pairs of jeans could get me through a week, one pair probably would not. All of other pants were too small.

My father insisted we return a pair. I was devastated as if I knew on some core level that keeping me even shoddily clothed was not a priority or a possibility. I was beginning to suspect that we weren’t poor simply due to lack of income, but because of how it was spent – gambling and drinking. I couldn’t quite formulate that thought,

My parent’s neglect left me more vulnerable to my Grandmonster who always gifted me with clothing, an act that felt special and made me feel seen.

One of my first acts of rebellion when I began to put the pieces together about the abuse and grooming was to shred the robe they bought me. I cut it into strips and put it in the trash. Then I had no robe. But I had taken action instead of just stuffing down the feelings.

Clothing, the Meaning of it All

I surround myself in clothing for the memories, the festivity, and the comfort of knowing I have things to wear. It isn’t the ideal way to move through the world, but ideal has always been out of reach for me. For our first Christmas together as a couple in 2003, Laura gave me a red sweatshirt. The sleeves and neckline are frayed, but it is structurally sound (because she invests in good clothing.) I still have it and wear it around the house when I’m cold, 22 years later.

I get very attached to clothing because of the memories. Gifts, souvenirs, significant events. I also go through phases – in the cold weather, I wear sweat pants, leggings, and jeans. I used to wear corduroys but they’ve all long been donated. As I don’t go many places, I default to sweat pants. I have a bunch and a bunch of sweat shirts, so it feels special to coordinate.

Leggings are my go to dressy look. I have a few dresses and several tunic style tops to layer under oversized cardigans to wear to plays and musicals. Leggings have no pockets, but cardigans do.

I stopped wearing jeans when I had my hysterectomy, but I have a nice stash – Laura made sure I was Levi and Lee supplied. I really like Lee stretchy women’s jeans except for the pockets. Levi’s are not great for big gals like me.

So my goal is to not fall in a rut with pants and rotate more.

Aside from the artistic cardigans, I rarely wear sweaters any longer. That was more of a paid workplace sort of thing. But I’m fond of several. And my ‘When Harry Met Sally’ fantasies of cute autumn sweaters are very real.

WTF is an artistic cardigan anyway?

In Conclusion

Anyway, my point is that I did a lot of organizing and cleaning work for me, my bedroom. I still have some laundry to do and there’s a massive amount of sorting and putting away. But it feels good to be reconnected with my things in an orderly way. I spent six months without access to them and the past year overwhelmed by fitting them into a much smaller space.

But this weekend, I did it. Or at least most of it. I did it the way I wanted to do it. I set the pace. I found my groove. My room feels more comfy. It will deteriorate again because I am organized and a bit sloppy. However the IKEA bags help with that quite a bit. Fill and lug. It is okay

Fill and lug could be a theme in my life. Not so much it is okay.