The Agoraphobic's Closet



The hangers in my closet are askew.

I haven't moved the empty ones from the back to the front of the line the way I like to. And there are several pointing upwards at jaunty angles, instead of hanging straight the way they should. Every day, they rattle-clank as I yank another garment free, sending them into new patterns of disarray.

And even though I am a person who yearns for symmetry, for straight, for tidy, for clear, for plain, I find the patterns beautiful. Sometimes, I stare for full minutes and smile because my closet is a mess.

Because I am wearing clothes.

Clothes that aren't the rumpled pajama pants and yawning tent t-shirts stuffed into my dresser drawers. Clothes that aren't my secret stay-at-home and nobody-sees clothes. I've been wearing outside clothes lately.

This is why my closet is beautiful.

Outside is a scary place for me. I am easily scared. My brain tells me lies, daily. Tells me that to be out of control is to be in danger. Tells me I am visible, vulnerable, victim. And it is never true. Never. I have never died from leaving the house. Never been so much as mildly maimed. Never been stood in front of a jeering crowd, openly mocked for all my shiny, glare-bright flaws. The spotlight is not a fan of me anymore than I'm a fan of it.

But my closet tells the story of risks taken. Of clothing worn and imaginary dangers faced. Simple errands. A family dinner in a public place full of prying eyes. A trip to the movies with a loud, attention-drawing five-year-old in tow. Time in our backyard cleaning up mushy sidewalk chalk forgotten under the snow, scraps of broken toys, and snack wrappers as the neighbour--her yard pristine--watches.

I have died a thousand make-believe deaths from potential humiliation, and only reality has the ability to steal the power from them. So my reality now has hangers, hanging jauntily askew, and puddles of dirty clothes on the bedroom floor that I'll pick up when I'm done being out out out and free free free.

I would write more, but I'm going out again today.

Whatever shall I wear . . .










6 comments:

  1. Open and simple and powerful. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love this. Anxiety can be SO debilitating - so glad you're taking steps to face and overcome!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This makes me so happy for you! 3 CHEERS FOR AMAZING KIMBERLY WHO IS CONQUEROR OF HER FEARS! ♥

    ReplyDelete
  5. PUH-RAY-ZUH GAWWD!!!
    I found someplace I could RITE...
    A-hem.
    Where was I?
    Ah, now I know:

    Dunno if you saw this before
    ...yet, here it is once moe, curly:

    Greetings, earthling!
    Need summore new-fangled-thots N ideers? Look no firdr, brudda. Can't stay long. Done gotta git, Paw... yet, if Im a sower, we plant the Seed; if Im an artist, we RITE the Word:

    Would U please help a plethora of King Size, wildchild, rawkuss poetry/wordz which are lookin 4 a home in thy novelty?? Thx. Whew. They're pretty insane. They're bereft of reason. Oi! Blimey! They're bloody PINK spiders!

    Gotta gobba lotta shrewd, surreal, supersonic, sardonic satires, sassy N savvy elixers N electronic elegance (and palpable nuance) on our YOUTHwitheTRUTH blogs. Wannum? Have'm. N'joym. Gettm outta my hair!!!

    How mucha wanna betcha our sugar-high-mojo, pleasure-beyond-measure, fuse-blowin-exploits R a copious madhouse of one lavish bookay D.O.A.? Our proFUSE NRGod who leads U.S. to explosive fairy-tales in the 'one-stop-shop' symphony Upstairs? Almighty God's the BigDude, the Owner of ElysianFields, the Grand Prize, the Austere Overdrive, NoPurchaseNecessary: our bombastic tenaCITY on a Hill which'll plant the Seeds 4u2 grow-up to new N greater heights!! Mama mia! Thatsa good pasta!!

    CAUTION: our 22ish, avant-guard, accurately-atrocious, offa-the-reservation-like-Jimmy-Hoffa, metal breadcrumms R sooo out-of-order, toots, they're an intimate wealth of bottomless sophistication. And dats da lethal fak, Jak. Go ahead. Sue me. Yawn. But, yet, here's the perennial KOO D'TAH: who else has actually SEEN the Great Beyond in spirit & lived to tella youse bout the bionic, bloated, brevity-like-earth we're living on?? Yes, earthling, Im an NDE, almost salivating4salvation. So gain altitude, never attitude: death has no intrinsick favorites.

    If Mr. abSUREditty's an ultra-great-reward, and not everyone enters, Q: why is it an excruciating deluge of epic-.357-caliber where the quality's a limitless bulldozer plowin, pushin-your-power-cord with eternal goodies? A: the Prize-A+-TheEnd just gives U.S. moe-curley-graphix 2 VitSee: an explosion-of-extravagance which few R asking 4 anymore! Grrr. They're too concerned withe grotesque sanity of ambivilant piss-ants which swiftly crawl like lemmings to their scorecard destruction. C'est la guerre.

    THANK GAWWWD!!! the Don has the ebullient BAWLS!!! to do the Manifest Destiny!!! To lead U.S. forward to the White House Upstairs with his SQUARES!!!

    So, break-free, earthling; be like a contraversial outgrowth of incredibly-intoxicating-effusiveness in your zeitgeist to give the ultimate, stunning, backknuckle potency: Wiseabove. Wanna join this useFULL idiot Upstairs 4 the most zany, kooky, X-acto-knife antidotes? Extremely exquisite, explicit endorphins in abundance? Puh-lenty of pulverizingly-tantalizing psychopathic psychosomatics with eXtras? i2i-kick-velocity's-ass-ultra-maximum-rocket-fuel-party-hardy at my pad ya ever encountered without d'New Joisey accent 4 an eternal slew of precarious, magnanimous & primeval absurdities indelibly etched in the granite corridors of eternity with a total-barrage-of-melt-in-thy-mouth 'depth-of-undenial'???

    Make Your Choice  -SAW
    ...cuzz nobody gitts outta here alive, earthling.

    ReplyDelete
  6. PUH-RAY-ZUH GAWWD!!!
    I found someplace I could RITE...
    A-hem.
    Where was I?
    Ah, now I know:

    Dunno if you saw this before
    ...yet, here it is once moe, curly:

    Greetings, earthling!
    Need summore new-fangled-thots N ideers? Look no firdr, brudda. Can't stay long. Done gotta git, Paw... yet, if Im a sower, we plant the Seed; if Im an artist, we RITE the Word:

    Would U please help a plethora of King Size, wildchild, rawkuss poetry/wordz which are lookin 4 a home in thy novelty?? Thx. Whew. They're pretty insane. They're bereft of reason. Oi! Blimey! They're bloody PINK spiders!

    Gotta gobba lotta shrewd, surreal, supersonic, sardonic satires, sassy N savvy elixers N electronic elegance (and palpable nuance) on our YOUTHwitheTRUTH blogs. Wannum? Have'm. N'joym. Gettm outta my hair!!!

    How mucha wanna betcha our sugar-high-mojo, pleasure-beyond-measure, fuse-blowin-exploits R a copious madhouse of one lavish bookay D.O.A.? Our proFUSE NRGod who leads U.S. to explosive fairy-tales in the 'one-stop-shop' symphony Upstairs? Almighty God's the BigDude, the Owner of ElysianFields, the Grand Prize, the Austere Overdrive, NoPurchaseNecessary: our bombastic tenaCITY on a Hill which'll plant the Seeds 4u2 grow-up to new N greater heights!! Mama mia! Thatsa good pasta!!

    CAUTION: our 22ish, avant-guard, accurately-atrocious, offa-the-reservation-like-Jimmy-Hoffa, metal breadcrumms R sooo out-of-order, toots, they're an intimate wealth of bottomless sophistication. And dats da lethal fak, Jak. Go ahead. Sue me. Yawn. But, yet, here's the perennial KOO D'TAH: who else has actually SEEN the Great Beyond in spirit & lived to tella youse bout the bionic, bloated, brevity-like-earth we're living on?? Yes, earthling, Im an NDE, almost salivating4salvation. So gain altitude, never attitude: death has no intrinsick favorites.

    If Mr. abSUREditty's an ultra-great-reward, and not everyone enters, Q: why is it an excruciating deluge of epic-.357-caliber where the quality's a limitless bulldozer plowin, pushin-your-power-cord with eternal goodies? A: the Prize-A+-TheEnd just gives U.S. moe-curley-graphix 2 VitSee: an explosion-of-extravagance which few R asking 4 anymore! Grrr. They're too concerned withe grotesque sanity of ambivilant piss-ants which swiftly crawl like lemmings to their scorecard destruction. C'est la guerre.

    THANK GAWWWD!!! the Don has the ebullient BAWLS!!! to do the Manifest Destiny!!! To lead U.S. forward to the White House Upstairs with his SQUARES!!!

    So, break-free, earthling; be like a contraversial outgrowth of incredibly-intoxicating-effusiveness in your zeitgeist to give the ultimate, stunning, backknuckle potency: Wiseabove. Wanna join this useFULL idiot Upstairs 4 the most zany, kooky, X-acto-knife antidotes? Extremely exquisite, explicit endorphins in abundance? Puh-lenty of pulverizingly-tantalizing psychopathic psychosomatics with eXtras? i2i-kick-velocity's-ass-ultra-maximum-rocket-fuel-party-hardy at my pad ya ever encountered without d'New Joisey accent 4 an eternal slew of precarious, magnanimous & primeval absurdities indelibly etched in the granite corridors of eternity with a total-barrage-of-melt-in-thy-mouth 'depth-of-undenial'???

    Make Your Choice  -SAW
    ...cuzz nobody gitts outta here alive, earthling.

    ReplyDelete

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