Ditching the past ... sort of

The place is clean.
Goodwill has new stock.
I can walk into my closet again.

Mission: Accomplished
Insert wild cheering and applause here

Cleaning out the horrendous mess where I hung my clothes, stored my linens and the place that had essentially served as a hiding place for a myriad of old shoes, pictures, bags and one very fake Christmas tree, forced me to make some tough decisions. Closets tend to do that - especially when it comes to whether or not you should toss out various items that, to most people would just be crap - but to you may be something that acts as a sort of time machine, transporting you back to those college years or *gasp* high school.

Yep ... I've still got clothes from high school - lots of 'em, to be exact. Well, I did. Many, I finally ditched over the last few days. But there are a few select items that I did not - nor will I ever - toss.

Take for instance the Sublime T-shirt. Not technically from high school, so I guess this one doesn't truly count. But I loved Sublime in high school and college and after college and still today. Sooo, that's why this shirt has special meaning, even though it's got a hole in the back shoulder and a bleach stain on the bottom front. It's seven years old and I won't toss it ever. Well, unless I can find another EXACTLY like it, then I'll think about it.

OK - next up is my Drivin' n' Cryin' long-sleeved T. This one is an oldy.

The year was 1993, and I was a junior in high school at my first concert in Atlanta without any sort of adult supervision. It was just me and Jacob, the guy I would have sworn I was going to marry (thank God that didn't work out as planned). Anyhow, he bought me the shirt after some drunk girl threw up on the one I was wearing. Nice gesture, eh? I thought so. But that's not why I'm keeping this one. I'm keeping it because this shirt has been through just about everything with me ... It was always my comfort shirt that I'd throw on after a crappy day in college or when I was just plain sick. And now you can see through it after being washed hundreds of times. But I still love that shirt, and I'm keepin' it.

Up next: My first Earth Day shirt. My mother bought me this shirt from some guy on the side of the road when I was a senior in high school. I was out to save the world, picking up litter, driving my friends crazy preaching the urgency of recycling and always, always, always cutting the plastic rings that hold soft drinks together for fear a dolphin would get its cute little nose stuck. My mother bought the T-shirt because she said the little girl sitting on top of the Earth looked like me as a child, and she said I was put on this Earth to save it. I think I'm failing at that grand task, but this shirt makes me remember how simple I once thought life would be. All we had to do was recycle and cut soft drink rings and everything would be OK.

And finally, that wonderful senior class autographed T-shirt. You had one, right? It was the covetted rite of the senior class. Everyone signed inside the year and it was printed onto a T-shirt that you wore with all the pride in the world ... for three months - until you went to college and you were looked at like a little baby for wearing something from high school, of all places. But I kept mine anyway. Call me a cheeseball, but I just cannot throw this one away, either.

I know I'm not alone, right? What relic from your past do you have stuffed away in your closet, dresser or storage chest? Come on ... spill it!