The Nuance of Socks

While I’m still very interested in blogging about mental health, I gotta take a break. An important break. A break to talk about socks. My socks.

See, this weekend I am doing a full wardrobe eval. Three hours ago it started as a simple attempt to divvy up the contents of my dresser into:

• Keep
• Box up for next season
• Give to Goodwill
• Throw away

It blossomed into doing the same for the closet as well. But not my purses in the closet. That’s a weekend project of it’s own. Then somehow the bathroom got involved. Not quite sure how that happened, but the contents of the bathroom have now been fully sorted.

What I discovered, much to my surprise, is that socks go out of style. See, about 10 years ago my mom started buying me socks for work at the holidays. I would tell her which color I was running low on and sturdy, beautiful socks would magically appear under the tree.

I’ve tried buying myself socks. It doesn’t work out so well. How can one be deficient in buying socks? I’m not quite sure what the problem is. I may be cheap when it comes to socks. I may be shopping in the wrong stores. But even when I actively TRY to buy high quality socks I fail. The last socks I bought for myself came in a three-pack at Lane Bryant. They are… colorful. My intention was to wear them with clothes they patently did not match with. Preferably dresses. To work. To show some wardrobe sparkle. At least, that was the idea in the store. I haven’t actually been able to bring myself to do it. It doesn’t seem like such a good idea now. Now that I have three pairs of the same color-schemed socks in different patterns. Here’s one of them:

I can’t decide for sure whether that’s a fabulous idea or a really bad one and until I’ve determined it for sure they stay in the drawer.

So, today, as I went through the contents of my sock drawer, I realized that nearly every pair of socks my mother has bought me over the past ten years are still in perfect condition. It took me a minute to realize that. Then it took me another minute to realize that for some odd reason more than half of them are brown and yet I only own one pair of brown slacks and no brown dresses or skirts at all. Hmmm. And then I realized that, while in perfect condition, some of them are dated. Yes, some of these socks are simply out of fashion. And yet, as much as the moment called for it, I could not bring myself to give away the socks my mother has been buying for me over the past decade.

So, now I have an entire dresser drawer (and not the small one) dedicated to Mom socks. Thanks, Mom!