Whose clothes are hanging in my closet?

I do love clothes. There, I said it: loud and clear.

There's no way around it and I do admit that my closet is way too big. And with closet I mean every closet in every room in the house has some of my clothes in it. And the furnace/utility room has some of my clothes too (each house in Canada has one of these in the basement where all the water tanks, furnace - which keeps the house warm in winter - sump pumps, etc. are housed). What can I say: Canada has very cold winters and it lasts a very long time too, and coats take up a lot of space...and for coats one needs quite a few pairs of boots, which take up more space than shoes. You see my problem?

Over the years though, and more so over the past year, one's body changes and it changes so gradually that your clothes realise it long before YOU do. It starts out with buying one size bigger than what you bought before because your usual size is just a tad too tight but the bigger size is still a tad too loose. Then one day you put on that bigger size and it fits perfectly all of a sudden. And then you realise your perfect pair of jeans just doesn't fit so perfect anymore and now the "bigger" size becomes your "usual" size and panic sets in!!!

You lie awake at night trying to figure out where things went wrong. You get up out of bed because you're just lying there anyway, and go to the refrigerator to get something to eat in order to help you think better on the problem at hand. Who can think on an empty stomach I ask of you?

The family comes to visit and they start to comment on the astonishingly big portions of the meals they encounter in restaurants here and ultimately , in your kitchen too. They ask if you invited other people over for dinner because it looks like you've cooked for an army. And suddenly you realise: It's happened! I have Americanised my lifestyle, down to the portions of my food. My eyes are blind to the enormity of it all. What I thought to be a humongous (is there even such a word?) portion when I moved here, has now become the standard size. Whether portions here are so big because they claim to give you value for money or whether this is a society which is so accustomed to abundance and excess and availability that they no longer realise that a family in China (now they know what healthy eating is) can eat from the plate of one person's meal here and there will still be food left - either way it's messing with my clothes.

As a child of Africa, I've seen poverty, starvation and need. I was therefore taught from early on to eat everything on my plate and to always think of the ones less fortunate than I am and on those who does not have what I take for granted. In Canada though, people in need is not  an everyday sighting and therefor it becomes harder to remind oneself how so many others live. So what do I do? I'll tell you: I eat the food which otherwise would have been destined for the bin - rather be fat than going for the other option.I don't like to waste no nothing. When I contemplate whether to save the last piece of chicken or carrot for a next time or to just eat it although I am totally stuffed, my husband always says: "The damage is the same", meaning whether I eat it or throw it away, damage will be done. It's inevitable. So will the damage be around my waist or psychologically when I do throw it away and have guilt feelings for days? You guessed it right! I buy the bigger size! Hence the oversized closet, I tell you.

We are taking for granted things for which others are struggling for on a daily basis. It's so easy to get accustomed to comfort in the land of plenty. I have admitted before to being no minimalist myself  but I do aspire to find the balance between enough and too much. Between comfort and opulence. I still have a long way to go, but being aware of it is a start, I hope.

Which brings me back to my closet. I have quite a lot of clothes which is total borderline between my "usual" size and this sneaky "bigger" size that came into my life and closet quite uninvited. Will I ever get back to my previous "usual" size or will I stay this "bigger" size which is currently my usual size? So confusing. What to do? To give away or to hang in there and wait for the "usual" size to come back to me and for whoever these new bigger clothes belongs to, to also come back and take their bigger clothes with them to where it belongs. I only have room for my own clothes in my closet, ok? Not for someone else's too!