With
the advent of spring comes spring cleaning, no matter how much hatred I have
for cleaning and going through things in general. It’s a tedious task, and time-consuming task,
and yet a very necessary one. “Out with
the old, and in with the new, that’s what I always, eh Fiona?” (Shrek, when he
was burping or farting at the dinner table, I forget.)
Last night I went through my closet. It’s been organized like this: On the floor
of the closet there is a huge basket of random things, like old backpacks, school
supplies, blankets, a bag of pebbles that I used to use for my now deceased two
goldfish (Dorian and Gibraltar,) as well as my hamper. Then there is a rack filled with button downs
and hoodies, vests and fancy pants. On
top of the rack there is a shelf stacked with three and half piles of paperwork
from all throughout college and high school, each stack reaching a height of at
least one and a half feet.
By the end of the night, 75% of those papers have been
deemed by me to be put in the recycle. I
would say if I were to stack the piles of paper together one on top of the
other, they would be the same height as me.
Now three quarters of that are gone.
The things that I kept comprise papers I’ve written in college and high
school, notes about astronomy from the astronomy courses I took in college,
music sheets from my high school chorus class, my teaching portfolio from my
senior year in college, a packet of short stories that I printed out from the
internet that I’ve always wanted to read during my free time during college, as
well as notes from various literature classes that I loved.
Things that I decided to recycle included many papers
from high school that I know for a fact I will no longer need later in
life. For example, biology notes, chemistry
notes, global and U.S. history notes, economics notes, forensic notes and
accounting notes. And because I know for
a fact that I no longer want to pursue teaching, I’ve decided to let go of all
my teaching notes from the English teaching program I was in, in college. They include notebooks of observation from my
observation hours I did before student teaching, as well as worksheets I’ve
made for my students while I was student teaching.
Now onto the rack of clothes. I love me some button downs but as I’ve
transitioned from female to male, it’s time to make some choices as to which
button downs still suit me (pun most definitely intended.) 75% of the clothes were button downs, 20%
were hoodies, 5% were vests and fancy pants.
Of the 75% of button downs, I’ve decided to give away (in a garage sale,
or to another family member,) 65% of them.
Those comprise button downs that were suited for women size small and
extra small. Some are plaid, some are
striped and some are solid colors (black, white, green.) They no longer fit me at all on the shoulders
(too tight) and on the upper arms (also too tight.) I do not like how they look on me and my
masculinizing body. The ones that I kept
are ones that I’ve recently bought for the body I have now.
Of the 5% vests and fancy pants, I’ve decided to let go
of all 5%. They simply do not fit me
now. They were all made for female
bodies.
However, of the 20% of hoodies, I’ve kept all 20% of them
since they all still fit me, perhaps even better now than before when they were
a little too big, but overall tolerable.
So that was my closet.
The next step was my dressers, particularly my sports shorts
drawer. Over the past two years I’ve
gone through a good amount of physical changes with the hormone replacement therapy. That called for a plethora of changes in the
shorts I wear as testosterone distributes body fat differently than estrogen
does. For example, my butt got smaller,
as did my waist, my thighs a little thicker with muscle, and my gut area
expanded (the testosterone also increased my appetite.) I would say that I got rid of 45% of all my
sports shorts. They include shorts that
became too big in the butt area, or shorts that were too tight on the thighs
area, or too tight in the gut area.
By the time I hit the bed, I felt as if I had a huge load
off of my shoulders. I’ve never had a
spring cleaning session quite as drastic as this. I cannot wait to have a garage sale, which
would symbolize for me the end of the “Bernadette” era, and the birth of the
“Brian” era.
