SPRING CLEANING

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My closet got a spring cleaning yesterday. It was overdue I suppose, it’s been more than a half a decade since that closet got its last one. It wasn’t my idea so I didn’t see the need of my participation.

Some folks are better at cleaning, which is only part of the tradition of Spring cleaning, than others. The proficient closet spring cleaners are the ones that leave their emotions in the bedroom and go to the closet with a “Take-no-prisoners” attitude.

By the time I got home from work, yup, some of us still work on Saturday, the closet spring cleaning was done. And sure enough, there were three big plastic trash bags of my stuff that had gotten picked to go to the less fortunate. I’m always amazed at how easy it is for some adults to determine what is best for another… 🤨

I confess I still have more than my fair share of sweatshirts that have holes the size of softballs. And still another portion of the sweatshirts that held up to the years of heavy barbells on my shoulders that are now as close to see through as possible. They passed threadbare status years ago.

Another confessional truth is that I have more tennis shoes than a small shoe store. These are different than the sweatshirts, my tennis shoes almost all look like they’ve barely been used. Some of it is due to the ball of my left finicky foot. The rest is due to the fact that I guess I have a tennis shoe fetish.

Sure enough, more than two of the plastic trash bags were filled with my tennis shoes. I sorted through them…

There was a time when I’d have unloaded most of those tennis shoes. The truth is that I won’t wear them again, I just like them and see no point of throwing something out if it still has some use left to it.

I guess I come by it honestly. My mom has magazines and shoes from decades ago, just in case… of what I don’t know… She has erasers that are fossilized, but you never know.

I fished out one red and black pair of Under Armour tennis shoes out of the trash bags and gave a forlorn look to the rest of them. I probably won’t ever wear them again, but it’s the principle I guess.

Spring cleaning will come to other parts of the house, the outside too, but not everything will get treated like my tennis shoes. Some items will get a stay of evacuation.

There’s dog leashes in the drawer. There are stuffed animal chew toys smattered about. And Larry’s dog beds are still here. He’s been gone since November, but none of us are ready or willing to part with them yet.

I have a hat, not a fancy one, that my dad used to wear sometimes in the summertime when he golfed. God took my dad home nine years ago May 7th. Spring cleaning will never come between me and that hat, not that anyone would try that knows the story behind it.

I have a lot of Bibles too. Study ones, different translations, even my first one. Spring cleaning will only mean they get dusted… and hopefully used.

We won’t take any of our keepsakes with us when it’s our turn to be called home, but till then they remind us of what we value, dusty or Spring cleaned.