Out of the closet.

Part of growing up is moving out of your parents house and embarking on a life of your own.

It's a really exciting time in a young girl's life because it means you can do things YOUR way. Women are nesters. We like to have our own decor, our own methods of storage, and our own kitchens.

(Even if we don't cook in them.)

I moved out of my mom's house when I was barely 20 years old. Since then, I've lived with boyfriends, husbands, and alone.

(That sounds like a lot, but really, it was just two boyfriends that turned into husbands.)

I loved living alone. I had a pink couch and a queen bed all to myself; I hung vintage Vogue covers on my walls, and I never emptied my dishwasher. I had all the pillows to myself, and no one could tell me not to buy that purple duvet cover. It was heaven.

When you live with someone else, there's compromise. Pink couch gives way to chocolate sectional, Vogue covers to Italian art prints. My stuffed animal collection found it's home in the garage, and his framed fish photos are hidden on the far wall in the guest bedroom.

(He's under the false impression that there will someday be a stuffed marlin hanging in our living room. Naive, silly, sweet man. That will SO never happen.)

Having moved four times in the past seven years, I purge my home on a regular basis. Every year I do the MAJOR closet go-through, where I donate bags and bags of stuff to Goodwill.

(Or, I have a garage sale! See Tia's Ideas on Being Frugal and Fabulous.)

I think the majority of women have things in their closet that they haven't worn in 5+ years. We keep things in there for a couple reasons.

One, we're hoping we'll fit into it again. (These items are usually pants, or that amazing strapless shirt that you spent too much on and only fits you once a year when you have the stomach flu.)

Two, we know we won't ever fit into it again but we like to be reminded that we used to be able to wear it. (I recently got rid of a pair of board shorts that I wore the summer between 8th and 9th grade. Le sigh.)

Whatever the reasons for keeping your unwearable clothes, I don't begrudge anyone for having a stack of them. It's good to have goals.

(But seriously? Those board shorts HAD to go. They were from a time before hips, and they were giving me a complex.)

My husband doesn't feel the same way about cleaning his closets. In fact, he doesn't like to get rid of anything of his. When I asked him to get rid of a few things so I could have a men's selection for the garage sale, he freaked out. It went like this:

ME: (deep in our extra closet, unearthing who knows what) Do you need this sweatshirt? You have another blue one just like it. I've never even seen you wear this.

HUBS: (alarmed) What? What are you doing? Stop touching my stuff!

ME: (cheerfully) I'm getting ready for the garage sale! This closet is full of clothes we never wear.

HUBS: That's my stuff!

**comes into room to investigate**

ME: (patiently) I know. But in the three years we've been together, I've never seen you wear any of this stuff...so I thought...

HUBS: Damn it, Tia! That's a perfectly good sweatshirt!

ME: Right! We could probably get like three bucks for it.

HUBS: It's MINE!

ME: (now realizing he's freaking out, and not being able to resist egging him on) Okay, so I'll put it in the pile.

HUBS: No! Hang that back up!

ME: (innocently) But why? You don't wear it.

HUBS: (bellowing) GET RID OF YOUR OWN STUFF!

ME: I'll just add this jacket too. And I'm pretty sure this shirt doesn't fit you.

HUBS: NOOOO!

I'm not sure why Hubs has such a hard time getting rid of stuff that he barely even knows he has. I mean, the man has never wanted for anything in his life. He's not spoiled, but he certainly wasn't ever deprived. He grew up in a nice upper-middle class neighborhood, in a great house with a family that likes each other and has dinner together on the weekends.

(A rarity these days, I know. We should all be so lucky.)

He never lived by himself. He never ate Spaghetti-0s out of the can because it was cheap or paid his rent with his credit card. He loves to buy gifts for people and is always generous with his money and his time.

But for some reason, he has a hard time parting with possessions. It's like he doesn't think he'll ever get another sweatshirt. Or that he doesn't have 10 hanging in his closet already. It's weird.

Since I am a helper, and I like to help Hubs get over his ailments and idiosyncrasies, I ruthlessly badger him until he caves and lets me do whatever it was that I was planning on doing before he got all bajiggity. See? Helping.

I think the main problem is that Hubs has failed to learn what every woman is born knowing:

If you get rid of stuff, you have room to buy more.

And according to my calculations, Christmas is only 83 days away.