Oh well, at least this shows I'm not in danger of having a purge anytime soon!
One regrettable aspect of CDing that I hear about a lot on this site is purging, which for the handful of people here who don't know what the term means (and believe it or not, I was one of them until fairly recently), is the act of tossing the contents of one's female wardrobe into the trash when the guilt and shame of CDing becomes all too much to bear. Having never felt particularly guilty or shameful about my own CDing, this isn't something I've ever done myself* (hence my ignorance of the phenomenon), and something I did tonight only confirmed to me that there's not much danger of that ever changing.
Because I'm finally taking that final, scary step into independent adulthood and moving out of home, I'm currently carrying out a bit of a cull of my possessions, and one of the first things I figured I'd get rid of was this lady's dressing gown I had made for myself a few years back (actually, if I had it specially made for myself, is it technically a ladies' garment?), and which I'd always been a bit disappointed with. I had it made by a guy who I used to have make a lot of clothes for me, but whose services I eventually stopped using when the quality of his work really started going downhill (perhaps because of his self-confessed love of illicit pharmaceuticals). Anyway, the dressing gown in question was one of the less successful jobs he did for me. To be made of quilted silver satin (and have a lovely pink lining), it was going to be one of those ultra-feminine housecoat-like ones that buttoned down the front, and had a lot of frills and ruffles. I figured it'd look great when it was done, and I'm sure it would've if my "dressmaker" had done a proper job of putting it together. As I said, though, he didn't; indeed, the end result was a bit of a mess**. The ruffles looked as if he hadn't put any effort whatsoever into doing them properly (indeed, a couple running down the front of the garment had the sort of gross, puckered appearance that a length of toilet paper often does after it's been - ahem - used), while the buttonholes were done the wrong way: horizontal rather than vertical, so that the two sides of the front of the garment moved apart when the thing was done up, making it all look horribly lopsided. So yeah, while I wore it a bit (and actually found it very comfortable during the colder months of the year), I was never overly happy with it, so thought it'd be no great loss to get rid of it. Deciding to dispose of it tonight, I took it out of the dark corner of the wardrobe where I'd left it languishing, ignored and unloved, after my disgust at its shoddy craftsmanship had finally become too great to suppress, only to experience some last-minute misgivings about throwing it out - looking at it again for what had probably been the first time in years, it occurred to me that it didn't look that bad. I decided I needed to be strong, however, so set about removing the buttons from it (the one part of it I could salvage), before proceeding to cut (or simply tear) the rest of the thing to pieces, so I could fit it in the bin. At first it stubbornly resisted all my attempts to destroy it, but once I finally managed to find a weak spot in it, I found myself able to rend it to pieces with terrifying ease (indeed, I'm often disturbed by just how easy it is to destroy a piece of clothing when you really set your mind to it). Once I'd reduced it to so much shredded satin and stuffing, I shoved the pieces of it into a couple of plastic bags and threw them in the bin. Now, though, I have to say that I'm wondering if I really did the right thing in getting rid of it. Would I have come to love it if I had given it a second chance, or would I have still regarded it as the poorly-made piece of shit it no doubt really was? Damn. :sad:
Oh well, as the title of this thread indicates, at least I can console myself with the realization that if I find myself experiencing this much doubt and anguish over getting rid of something I probably had a dozen good reasons to throw out, at least it means I'm probably not in danger of having a purge anytime soon!
*Actually, I lie. I did do it once, many years ago, although the guilt that impelled me to do so was largely externally imposed. Deep down, in my heart of hearts, I didn't think there was anything wrong with my CDing, and even as I was getting rid of my (then thankfully small) stash, I knew I was being foolish and doing something I'd likely regret (and did).
**To make matters worse, I can no longer find the material I had it made out of, thus thwarting my plans to have somebody else make me another and do a better job of it. :Angry3:
