When I was attempting to explain the pervasive nature of my to a friend, I offered as evidence that I feel guilty when certain clothes fall out of circulation

"Of course you feel guilty about your clothes. Every woman feels guilty about her clothes," she said dismissively.

"I don't mean that I feel guilty that I've spent money on them and they're just hanging there. That would be logical. That might actually make sense," I explained, "What I meant is that I am deeply concerned about the emotional response my garments might have when they are no longer worn on a regular basis."

"You mean, like you might have a paisley jacket from 1998 that grieves silently because it no longer goes out on the weekend? Are you worried that a pair of red shoes with heels too high to be worn without an oxygen mask might weep when you're not looking? Do you have lingerie so wounded by a lack of that it might consider getting together with your old slips and filing a class action suit against you for neglect?"

"Sort of."

"Sweetie," she sighed, "You might be alone in this one."

I don't think I am. If I'm all nerdy and about something, my bet has always been that I could find other women just as nerdy and anxious as I am.

It didn't take long for me to find excellent company.

Karen understood the concept immediately, even though she doesn't, herself, focus on clothing as a means of self-flagellation.

"You mean like when you were a kid and you lined your stuffed animals up and left them there for a while, but you discovered you needed to arrange them every so often, so that the one's you like best weren't always in the privileged position, because that might make the green elephant your aunt gave you feel bad since you never really liked him? So you occasionally put your green elephant at the head of the line in order to disguise your true feelings for him? I understand that entirely."

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Maybe I'm just trying to make up for those years when I was a kid, when I had a brown skirt and top, a blue skirt and top, and a pink party dress and that's it. I had a pair of school shoes and a pair of sneakers. On my seventh birthday, I asked for a headband with fake flowers stuck to it, but my uncle Bill hissed to my mother, "Make her take that thing off. She looks like a farmer," a phrase that prevented me from accessorizing for many years.

I'm not getting out the violins here - I wasn't exactly the Little Match Girl dressed in rags, but because of these early experiences, I do feel simultaneously entitled to and guilty about the pleasures of clothing.

Maybe it's because what I really wish is that I could take my 12-year-old self shopping.

But it's time for me to clean my closet and cleanse myself of the guilt; I don't need to be surrounded by stuff that makes me feel bad. That's what family is for (haha--just kidding, relatives! Sort of!). Anything that makes me feel guilty when I look at it is going to Goodwill or The Salvation Army. It might be able to do somebody else some good instead of giving me the evil eye.

Giving it away will be a gift to myself.