Have you ever looked at your relatives’ style, then back at your own and been like, “Seriously genetics, whiskey tango foxtrot?”

Myself, I’m a Frankenstein-ish combo of my design-loving mom and my raised-in-the-Depression-don’t-spend-a-dime-on-anything grandma, which is why I do nonsensical shit like carefully choose a birthday gift of a repainted vintage dresser and then fill it with clothes that I haven’t worn in years but can’t seem to get rid of. 

The alchemy of influences between my savvy fashionista mom and my uber-practical grandma is on full display in me, or rather, in my stuff. Such as: 

At a safe faraway glance, I consider this a reasonably cute outfit. And it was, five years ago. Now it looks like I was gifted by Cinderella’s stepsisters. 

The mom-voice in my head tells me each of these pieces are “cute” and just in need of a little repair (that I’ll never, ever do). The grandma Ginny voice hisses, “You might need that someday!” So I do like any self-respecting busy mom does – I put everything back in the drawer and shove it all aside for another day. 

And Because I live in hope that one day it will fit again (or I can’t bear to give it up), check out this very nice, not-at-all raggedy outfit that’s been decorating my closet for the better part of a decade. 

It’s my favorite fancy work dress! Or at least it was before I had my daughter. So for the past 7 years I’ve kept this one on the back burner….because maybe, any day now, I’ll get the time and motivation to transform my middle-aged tummy back to its pre-partum shape. And look, I STILL HAVE SHOES THAT MATCH. Except, I don’t. Because last week, while I was wearing them on a rare office sojourn, the shoe broke on my foot. Along with my delusions of ever getting into this dress again. 

I’m feeling a little defensive in my own blog. When I step back and literally look at these pictures, what is going on here? Who keeps clothing with visible fraying & holes and dresses they haven’t worn since 2013? Who insists on clinging to stuff they aren’t using and don’t need?

People who don’t know what they’ll need, that’s who. People whose lives have taken unexpected twists and turns and have felt the rug yanked out from under their feet, or who have never felt on solid ground in the first place. Back in the year when my husband lost his job and we moved to a new city for me to take a pressure cooker of a new job only to get pregnant a few months in, it felt like I was trying to build a foundation on an earthquake zone, and one of the ways I coped was by clinging to items that might possibly be useful. I couldn’t control my husband’s job search, the escalating demands of my own career or my mounting worries about new motherhood, but I could stuff the extra blender away just in case we decided to make our own baby food (which we never, ever did). 

The problem was that by clinging to so much excess stuff, it was harder and harder to find what I actually needed. Plus it fed my guilt about all the things that I could be using and wasn’t….like the baby-food making blender. 

So I admit it – I never whipped up homemade toddler mush. But I did do and am doing lots of stuff that matters a lot more, like raising a happy healthy kid, navigating a mental health crisis and keeping myself gainfully employed all along. And yes, I’ve kept too much stuff along the way, trying to prepare for all those just-in-case scenarios that I was so afraid would be thrust upon us. 

But we’re doing fine. I can breathe. I need to breathe. And that’s why all the featured outfits above are either on their way to the most fabulous thrift store in the ATL or into the hands of my friendly neighborhood sanitation crew. 

Not the next one though. And this is the OTHER reason I cling to stuff unnecessarily – because every so often, you look at something old and see its purpose in your life anew. After all the ups, downs and false starts of the past nine years, I could use an outfit that makes me feel like Wonder Woman’s no-nonsense cousin. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Supermom doesn’t exist. But that’s all right, we’ve got things handled. And with a little decorative paint added to the blue number above, I think I’ve got my next Halloween costume too. Anyone got ideas for the name of an imperfect-but-fabulous superhero? Drop ‘em in the comments if you do!

Here’s to letting go of the junk of your past and moving forward feeling lighter….physically and emotionally too.