Good-bye, 2023 & the skirts I no longer wear

Tying out 2023 and why is it so hard to let go of clothes that no longer fit?!

Hi, friend! APL is a newsletter about aspiring to live out the Proverbs 31 lifestyle by building an enduring family legacy & generational wealth. For more on the topic of women & work, check out my Elevate Blueprint! To download our Family Legacy Guide, click here.

My husband and I have been trying to declutter and purge lately, which has included donating or giving away clothes that no longer fit us or who we are today.

Admittedly, my husband has been better at this than I am.

I keep going into the closet and sifting through my clothes with every intention of purging, but I can’t seem to make myself do it.

There’s several items - mostly skirts - that are part of my prior life. My life before kids. My life when I went into the office to work. Professional pieces that I invested in once I started working full time after graduating law school. At the time, it felt like the biggest expense but they represented the success I had spent years dreaming about and the career I worked so hard for.

But my life is different now. My body changed. I’ve changed.

My life right now shifts between pregnancy, postpartum and nursing. As my body changes with each season, the clothes I am able to wear change. Few items work across all these seasons, so I find huge chunks of my wardrobe remaining unworn - reminders of who I used to be.

The thing is - even if I do someday get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, my hips won’t fit into those pencil skirts, and the life I lead now as a work from home mom (and the life we hope to live in the country) isn’t suited for pencil skirts either.

Yet, I still hang on to those items. The ones that I haven’t worn in almost three years. The ones that no longer fit my lifestyle or the woman I am today.

Because it can be hard to let go of the good things, even when we’re moving into something better. It’s tempting to hold on to the things that we think make us feel like us, even when they’ve grown too tight and no longer truly fit.

That’s true not only for clothes, but all of life: jobs, cities, houses, relationships, churches.

Because as my husband and I take steps towards the dreams and legacy we are building for our family, it requires leaving comforts and favorites we’ve grown to rely on. Habits, routines, places, people that became a part of us. And yes, clothes.

It takes courage and strength to take something (or someone!) you’ve known and loved and to let it go - to acknowledge that it served you well for a season, but it no longer has a place in your life.

To recognize that you are still you, even if you’ve changed and outgrown what used to make you feel most like you.

To leave something good behind and move into something else that has the potential to be just as good, or even better.

As 2023 draws to an end, I’ve been trying to tie it all out. To look back and reflect before planning for 2024. Sometimes, it is easier to do this when you have a year of milestones: engagements, moves, job changes, weddings, babies being born.

But for us, even though 2023 did have some milestones like a job change for me, Levi turning one and finding out we’re pregnant with (and growing!) baby #2, as I look back on the photos from 2023, it’s a lot of ordinary daily life. Slow living. Spending time at home together. Working. Visiting family. Investing in our church community. Lots of farm visits. Cooking.

And I am realizing that this too is good. After a few years of big life changes (meeting to married in six months, moving states, moving in together, getting pregnant with Levi right after our wedding, becoming parents), a year of slow and quiet is what we needed as a breather before we move into 2024 and any changes and growth the new year will bring.

For now, I’ll be signing off for the year as we go into a week off work and lots of family time with just us three to celebrate Christmas and welcome the new year. And maybe it will include a Goodwill run to pass those skirts on to someone who will actually wear them :)

Until next time,

YPS