How to be a hoarder.

Today I cleaned out my completely overstuffed wardrobe. I pared it down to what I consider my must-haves and I still have more than I can fit in my drawers and closet. This is totally why I don't watch Hoarders or any other show whose main plotline is "We go to some crazy person's fucked-up messy house and try to take all of their shit," because I see the way those people cling to their two-year-old gum wrappers, and then I look at my two-year-old gum wrapper that I got from a Mississippi Braves baseball player and cringe. I have had, have now, and always will have, more worldly possessions than I could possibly hope to handle.

It wouldn't be so bad to clean out my room if it wasn't full of so much FAIL.

For instance, I danced for ten years. It was awesome, I had tights and a leotard and a stiff-ass bun, and nothing else mattered. I danced around campus to get to my classes, I danced solos in recitals, and I was, if I dare say so, pretty fuckin' good. Then I tried to go en pointe, meaning that I had to buy eighty dollar shoes made of satin and what might as well be fuckin' wood, and then I had to try to stand on the exact tips of my toes wearing those shoes. It was painful, and that in and of itself would not have stopped me, as I pride myself on being a member of the fairer sex, a benefit of which is that I naturally have a high pain threshold for birthin' babies. Aside from being painful, however, dancing en pointe turned out to be physically impossible for me. I could get up to the tips of my toes and stand there for a little while, but I couldn't walk en pointe, or dance very effectively, because my feet would bend forward and basically melt out of the shoes. This wasn't the most surprising thing, as I am really flexible, and I can do things like walk with my toes curled under my feet, like this kid:

I have always had trouble with strength because of this flexibility, but often both my teacher and myself had attributed my problems to the well-known fact that I was lazy. When my feet started popping out of my shoes in a perverse bow-shape, though, everyone agreed that it would probably be better for me if I quit, because I was a great ballerina, but if I couldn't go en pointe there was not much... point (haha).

So today I opened a drawer, and ten years' worth of worn leotards and tights full of runs spilled out, and in getting rid of them it felt as if someone was ripping pieces of me out. But I can't hold these things hoping to start back up again. I know I never will.

There were a lot of clothes in that drawer, but I found some other things, too. I found a whole fuckload of shame sitting in the corners and settling to the bottom, because I feel like I'm not woman enough to somehow get past what I know to be a congenital disorder in how my body works. I'm still looking at what I know to be an impossible goal, and thinking that if I could just stop being so fucking lazy I could get there.

But now I'm rid of it. I just don't have it sitting around my room, so it's not like I can pull out my old sports bras and sit on the floor and cry on them anymore (Not that I ever did that. What? Why are you looking at me?!)

Though I still have my pointe shoes. Years from now, some organizational expert or presumptuous therapist will pull them from a pile of dead cats and gum wrappers and look at me with an expression of pity.