It was a fool’s errand, really, entering my closet the other day with the purpose of culling its contents for underused items. But I do it every year, at least since I lived in New York and my closet was small enough to leave me with a “gain one, lose one” clothing mantra, even with the handy fabric hanging sorters from The Container Store saving all kinds of space. Now, with a suburban-sized closet fitted with a Husband-built organizing system, I still think it’s just good policy to maintain a vigilance for redundancy and waste.

Maybe not so much when I’ve just had a baby, though.

I quickly realized that the Pants section was off-limits. I only recently abandoned my maternity jeans, with much regret, and squeezed into my fat jeans. When I tried on a pair of skinny jeans, I could barely fit them over my knee. So, yeah. The pants need to be left alone for now. Showing myself some grace in that arena.

That left me with the rest of the clothes: the tops and dresses and sweaters and skirts, all hanging there gathering dust and looking at me like the stranger I’ve been to them for the past few months of pregnancy/semi-bed-rest/newborn attendance and the months of housesitting that went along with all those conditions. The tops were only slightly less tricky than the pants, what with the chestiness of the organic milk farm I’m running, but I persevered and tossed items on the basis of quality rather than fit. As I went through the hangers–and realized that I haven’t bought new clothes in, like, OMG forever–I noticed that each piece had its own story, its own memory associated with it. There was the rack of dresses I wore on my honeymoon, a week in St. Lucia that I try not to dwell on these days for fear of descending into depression as I live out the opposite of that gluttonous relaxation. There was the gray dress I wore the night TH proposed; the snazzy jacket I wore on nights out in New York when I needed to complete an outfit; the silk top I was wearing the night TH and I first kissed; the DVF dress I got at my first sample sale in the city. There were work tops and deep-V tops that bordered on my version of slutty; there was a sequined skirt that I’ve never worn and a suede skirt that I’ve worn only once and I have no idea if I’ll ever have occasion to wear either again, but I’m not ready to let go of the possibility.

More than anything, the clothes told a story of where I’ve been. Yoga pants and sweatshirts tell the story of where I am now. And of where I’ll go? I guess we’ll have to wait until the next time Banana Republic has a sale to figure that one out. But I’ve come to realize that I need to retell my own story to myself, and often. Because there are the moments when it all just seems too hard, when I’m hearing an agent say “No thanks” and a baby crying and my own self-doubt, and I need to remember that just a few years ago, I thought I had veered out of any possible plan for good…and that was right before things got really good.

So I guess, in the end, the point is that we look back at how grace has cared for and carried us in the past (by, for example, redeeming us out of our own bad choices…like high-waisted pants) and let that faithfulness give us what we need to–wait for it–come out of the closet. Because the rest of the story is waiting to be lived, and I’ll be living mine with a slightly more convex belly than ever before–something I wouldn’t change for the world. (It gives the boobs a place to rest, see.)