The Initial Purge

Saturday was the purge. 

 

 

No, I'm not talking about the movie The Purge where one day a year you need to lock yourself up in a panic room, or participate in committing any crime, including murder, with zero consequence.  I'm talking about facing the giant stash of footwear that I never knew I owned.

When I counted my eighty pairs of shoes and boots, after the initial shock and embarrassment of an actual total, I immediately pulled out 25 sets of them for donation.  They lined the entire wall of my living room, rounded the corner, and finished in my kitchen.  Shameful I tell you.  Having far less than half of my total collection take up that much amount of visible space in my common living area made me so much more aware of what I own that I never use.  I'm actually surprised I hadn't resorted to building some shelves to store them more properly! I mean, I could have even started to color code them into pretty rainbow colors like I have done with my clothes in the past...

Like I said, Saturday was the haul.  I whittled my collection down to around forty.  I threw the unusable ones away and neatly bagged up nearly forty pairs of shoes, boots, and *gulp* incredible name-brand heels.  I drove to Goodwill and handed over bags of footwear, in nearly perfect condition, including several pairs of really nice heeled boots, and left. 

Driving away I actually breathed a sigh of relief.  I never realized the hold that these material items had on me.  Items that I rarely ever used and often didn't even notice in the midst of my everyday cluttered and busy life. Now, walking in to my house with an entire shoe rack gone, I felt two things.

1.  Lighter.   For nearly a week there were shoes lining my walls waiting to go to their next stop in life.  My small house felt more open now that they were gone.  Sure my sentimental side was like, "I'm going to miss that pair of tennis shoes!" or "Maybe I should have kept those brown heeled boots - they were so expensive!"  But then my rational side spoke up and reminded me that I literally haven't worn most of those things in years.  Someone, somewhere, will get far more use out of them than I ever did.  And now, with them gone, somehow my home seems more welcoming.  Even if it's just to me, or just in my own head.

2.  Go big or go home!  Forty pairs of footwear is half the number of what I used to own but is still a crazy-large number!  I would like to cut even that number in half.  And so, the process continues...

My take-away from this shoe-portion of my journey:  Quality over quantity.  It's okay to have footwear that you love.  Just make sure you get more bang for your buck!  In the future I will still (always probably) buy my chucks.  And when it comes to boots and dress shoes, I'll opt not for 10 options, rather, a quality timeless set that will last me for years.