Look at this woman. She’s maybe not living her best life, but things are pretty great. She’s young, just getting out of a depression cycle, and living in one of the most exciting cities in the world. Things are looking up. She doesn’t know it yet, but this part of her life has an expiration date – in a few years, she’ll meet the man who will be her husband, and in several more, she’ll move outside of the city and have a baby. But right now, she is (relatively) care-free, has a world of options right in front of her, and can basically do whatever she wants.

That young woman was me, once. I loved being her. I don’t long to be her again – I’m more or less happy with my life as it is now, and she lacked a lot of the things I hold very dear. She was lonely sometimes, and I almost never am. She doesn’t have my baby. We are very different people in so many ways. She thought she never wanted children (although she was starting to second-guess that assumption, even if she’d never admit it). She was flirting with free-market liberal politics despite being a life-long leftist. She thought she wanted to work in advertising like some kind of modern-day Peggy Olson. She’d grown apart from the girl she had been a few years before, and she would grow apart from the young woman she was then. But all the same, I loved being her, and I look back on her life fondly.

Now, look at her dress. She made it herself from some remnant cotton lawn that she got on sale. It was an expensive fabric, and she loved the print. She drafted the pattern herself and wore that dress all summer, and for a few summers after that before she filled out a bit and it somehow got shorter, and she felt less comfortable wearing such short dresses. The versions of this woman that came after her kept that dress in the closet, and occasionally wore it as a shirt. But it never looked the same again. They held onto the hope that it would someday, but it never did.

I put this dress (top) on over some linen pants yesterday. The elastic is stretching out, and the square neckline doesn’t work with nursing bras at all. It’s somewhat practical because the neckline can be pulled down for breastfeeding, but otherwise it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t look right on my body. It’s far too short on me to be a dress (it doesn’t even cover my bum!), but it’s a weird length for a top. It doesn’t sit right in places. I love the fabric. I loved wearing this dress, once upon a time. But, I don’t love it on me anymore.

This is a story that can be repeated throughout my wardrobe. There’s the leather skirt that pulls at the hips, the band tees that are too small in the chest, and the dresses that just don’t make me feel comfortable in my own skin, even though they made me feel beautiful once. It’s hard to let go, but I think it’s time.

In a similar vein, there are the things my fantasy self has accumulated – clothing I liked the idea of but that didn’t really work for my body, craft supplies I can only hope to have the time to use, books I thought I really ought to read, and kitchen gadgets that seemed handy but that I don’t really need. I studied marketing, so I feel a little sheepish that I let my fantasy self get such a grip on me; after all, marketing is basically the art of whispering to the fantasy self. ‘Buy this,’ whispers the message, ‘and you can be that girl.’

It’s easy to accumulate and keep these things, which then become the clutter that disrupts our lives. Our fantasy selves are so compelling because there’s so much hope tied into them. One day, we tell ourselves, that will be me. Our past selves can be even more compelling because we can say, that was me. Meanwhile, the stuff builds up, and it can actively keep us from living our lives as they are right now. I recently watched a video where the creator, Leena Norms, talked about things she has learned about sewing and why she is ‘anti-stash.’ She mentioned that buying fabric and sewing are two different hobbies, and I’d never thought of that before, but I realized just how true that is. Another creator made a video about all the reasons you hate your wardrobe, and I loved it because I kind of hate my wardrobe right now. She did a section on your ‘fantasy self,’ which is what got me writing this post and confronting not only that fantasy self but also my past self.

It’s time to let go of the stuff these versions of me have collected. Some clothes will be donated, some can be upcycled, and others will be thrown away. I’ll think long and hard about the things I’ve stored and whether I actually use them, can use them, and most importantly, will use them (because can and actually will are two different things). I think I’ll hold onto my fabric and craft stash for the most part, but clearly, I need some rules here. After all, if I want to make something, I have a lot of choices. And now probably isn’t the time in my life to try to pick up any new hobbies, so I shouldn’t kid myself that I am going to. I have a baby. I’m not going to take up felting, lace-making or spinning – I’m just not. If it’s not a material for a project that uses something I already have (thread, fasteners, lining, etc.) and involving a craft I already do, it’s probably not worth buying at this point in my life.

As for that dress? The 24-year-old woman who wore the dress lives in the past, and the 38-year-old woman I am now has no use for it. I still love the fabric, but I don’t love that dress on me, it has seen better days, and there isn’t enough there to re-work it. So, I’ll upcycle the fabric into something for my daughter. That way it can live on and serve a purpose in our lives right now, rather than take up space in my closet.