Letting go

Like every year the much dreaded Diwali safai is upon us. I know most of you have already finished it but people like me are still struggling with it. Like every year skeletons have come out of the closet. For a hoarder like me this is a very difficult time. To decide what is important (everything) what needs to be given away (husbands clothes) and make place for new more relevant stuff. De clutter. Organise. These are words that i run away from. I know how inviting a neat closet is. For a brief 3 days after diwali my closet is clean. and then it piles again. It starts from something as innocent as the bill of the new pants i bought for Arav in case i might have to exchange it and then it extrapolates. Soon my closet starts resembling a refugee camp with unclaimed objects and i have no clue how to stop it.

The upside of this cleaning is nostalgia. I just love to clean the boys closets. always getting amazed by how qucik Arav outgrows his clothes. Neatly folding and storing the ones i want to preserve for Nivaan. Passing along some to other kids i love. Taking out bigger size for Nivaan from the storage. Remembering how Arav used to look in them. Thinking of the places we travelled together. The flights we took. Constantly comparing their childhoods. Reminding myself to not compare them. So on and so forth. Bitter sweet emotions.

There is a red bag under the bed that i look forward to and run away from in equal measures. For last 6 years i have removed its contents mulled over it for few days and then packed it again. This year i knew what needed to be done. This bag contains my new york clothes. My work clothes. My winter clothes. Both of which have vanished from my life since relocating back to bombay. Initially i kept them thinking i am on a maternity leave and its just a matter of time before i join work again. And i didnt want to give them away. It soon became clear im not going back to work atleast not where i will be wearing blazers and trousers. Still i held onto them like a stubborn child. These clothes are pretty much the only connection to that life. The golden period as i think of it now. My short lived career. The corporate life that i had just started to enjoy. The city i had just started to call home. The freedom that i never took for granted.

When i arrived in New york in January of 2006 i was a 22 years old big eyed new bride. I had never lived away from my parents and here i was saat samundar paar playing house house with a man i barely knew. New york was my first everything. It was my first taste of a life as an adult. even though we parted ways amicably ,NY and I, I still cant get myself to write about it.

But those clothes. The white sweater I picked from FCUK. Just coz it was FCUK. The calvin klein shirt that i found in half off aisle. The beanie and gloves i gifted myself from Macys. That red bag was like a time machine. I remember the purple sweater i wore in holiday party of my workplace. I was the brown girl from India who could speak good english who was a vegetarian who was already married at 22 and most importantly who was already a CPA. It was pure chance that i was a tax accountant and very surprising that i was good at it.

I wonder how people work for years and years and then quit it to become full time parents. I worked for a total of 3 years only and i still miss it. I miss my cube. I miss paychecks. I miss my work spouse. I miss dressing up.

Anyway so after a good cry i finally got the courage to empty this bag once and for all. It had to be done.  I tried each and every item one last time and gloated in the pleasure of fitting into some of them. And then with a big heavy heart i gave them away. But not before i smuggled two pants (which still fit and are not those horrible boot cuts)

So yeah. It was such an emotional experience that i have suspended the rest of the cleaning till i get over it. Writing this and may be reading a good book should help.

Happy Diwali everyone