Paris Letters Read Online Free PDF Page A

the next town, likely thinking we had had a lovely time and life moved on.
    I was devastated. I had believed in the story of us, from seeing him in a magazine all the way to applauding his do-gooder projects well into old age. But no. He had moved on to other do-gooder projects. A year went by with little more than a comment here and there on my Facebook page. When he did leave a comment, my day was made. He was the emblem of all the relationships that didn’t work out. He got all the glory. If I could have made things work with him, I wouldn’t have felt defective. He was the hero of my heartache, the knight that could have, but never did, rescue me from my loneliness.
    I folded my red lacy panties and placed them back in my drawer. Soon, I had a big drawer with a tiny pile of underwear, all neatly folded like envelopes. This was more than just satisfying. A tiny chasm opened in my soul, and peace began to trickle in. I felt lighter.
    Cleaning out my underwear drawer was such a lovely feeling that in the weeks that followed, I moved on to cull all my closets, except for the closet of art supplies. Too overwhelming. I opened it once and quickly shut it before a metal Prism pencil box fell on my head. Best to stick to clothes.
    There were those slimming black Corporate Barbie pants. They had to stay for now. I had plenty of office meetings in my future before I could toss them. But what about the other black slacks that never fit as well or looked as good as the miracle Corporate Barbie pants? Those slacker slacks could go. As could the rest of the clothes that just didn’t work on my body for one reason or another. Did I need those Tshirts that had shrunk in the dryer so I’d have to constantly tug them down over my midriff? No. And what about those sundresses that I loved so much and wore so often five years ago that I never wore anymore? Tossed. Or those shirts with the armpit stains that never came out. Was that deodorant or me? Those had to go.
    This first swipe of my closet was a weeding out of clothes that weren’t worthy to be worn in public by anyone anywhere, the ones that not even the thrift store would want. Immediately my closets looked better. And the feeling of spaciousness felt so good that I took another swipe a few weeks later. This time, I gathered all the clothes that were worthy to be worn in public, but no longer by me. Dresses that were just short enough to make me not want to wear them. Jeans that I never chose because I already had my favorites. And shoes. Why did I ever think I was a high-heel girl? All these B-list clothes were stuffed into garbage bags, heaved in my car, tossed with a thud at the donation drop-off door of my local thrift store, and replaced with a yellow tax write-off receipt.
    Returning to my apartment after donating my clothes made me feel so great that the last thing I wanted to do was to go out and buy more clothes. In fact, it made me never want to buy anything ever again.
    Did I make $100 a day cleaning out my closets? No. But it convinced me to avoid the mall, thereby keeping money in my pocket. And after feeling the weight of bag after bag heading out of my apartment, I wondered why I had bought all these clothes. Did I buy them to bring me happiness? Did they? Not really, no. In fact, they got in the way of what I was looking for.
    Immediately after the great decluttering of my closets, I discovered a side effect from all that closet space. There is a certain freedom in not having so many choices. I knew I had less choice of what to wear, yet it didn’t feel that way. Being able to keep my short inventory in my head made me feel like I had more choices. Plus, there was no more lost time in scrounging. And that kept me satisfied enough to not spend what little free time I had buying clothes I didn’t need that didn’t make me or my wallet happy.
    I found this new happiness curious, so I did a little research. Unclutterer.com defines an unclutterer as “someone who