Selling My Clothes or Selling My Soul?

2018 by far was one of the worse years of my life. The years following weren't so great either, but this was really the beginning of the overall traumatic season of my life. It started the year earlier, but I didn't catch it or even see what was happening until the spring of 2018.

Before the summer even hit that year, I had lost everything. My family, my daughter, my job, my car, my sense of self, and any slight hope of morality. Gone. I didn't exist anymore. I became enveloped and transformed by an insecure dictator. Controlling everything I did, where I went, who I talked with, what I ate, when I slept, what I wore...

It started off so small and casual, I never saw it coming.

I became more aware of it the day I came back after three days of living in a shelter because my boyfriend at that time kicked me out of the house with nothing but the clothes on my back and the shoes on our feet. There's so much more to this story, but it digresses from the point of this blog (so maybe later on I'll write a blog post about it).

Around this time, I felt forced in many ways to my sell clothes, among many other personal items that I wasn't ready to get rid of yet. There was many harsh provoking thoughts that lead to the final decision of giving up and letting go to an online company to take them away from me. Forever.

And then when they sold. I relived the devastating lost all over again. Seeing my things disappear, even though they were so insignificant compared to everything else I was loosing. It was more physically tangible and a constant reminder, so I felt the lost.

These thoughts of I'm never going to have the opportunity to wear this again... because they were so vibrant, fun, and full of life. These clothes represented me. ButI had changed since being in this relationship. I knew that there was nowhere he was going to take me where I could wear clothes that represented me- ever. I felt at that time I was going to be with him for the rest of my life, so it made sense at that time that I would never wear these beautiful pieces of clothing again. Even though I wanted to.

Other thoughts of I was being selfish for keeping clothes I was never going to wear again left a painful punch to the gut. Keeping them in my closet, envisioning myself going to art galleries, and going dancing felt so unrealistic to my current situation; it honestly didn't make sense to keep them for these so called fantasies.

Another thought was- there was a time that he told that his "ex"-girlfriend might be moving in as she might need a place to stay and I needed to make room for her in our tiny 2 bedroom apartment with (at that time) 2 kids. Seriously. I had to work that out on-top of everything else.

One very heavy thought was: I was not bringing in enough money to pay for "my fair share" in the relationship. I was selling everything I could to help in anyway while also working two fairly decent income jobs. Receiving food assistance from the government and still feeling like it wasn't enough- because that's what was said to me over and over again. So I believed it and did everything I could to bring in anything I could think of.

Guys- we need a reality check right here.

I sold my Hot Wheel collection. I had thousands of cars from years of collecting, some of them more rare than others. And I didn't even keep a dime of that money after selling them. It all went to him.

Clothes and other material come and go. And of course now that I am free from that lifestyle, I can buy anything I want and desire to if I so choose. Having that freedom is unbelievable and freeing.

However, it still pains me to a degree of the torture inside of me during that time. To feel that I HAD to get rid of my clothes and possessions sooner than I was ready. The worst part of all of it was the majority of those clothes and other items was given to me by my favorite person at that time. I worked with her for almost 10 years, and she would buy and give me clothes, hand me down purses and shoes. High end guys- like the real McCoy of the rich and famous. This also included (don't hate me for this...) Christian Louboutin black heels with the red soles.... augh. I cringe every time I think about giving those up. LIKE WHO DOES THAT?!

It's hard writing about all this as I relive those past moments. My tortured mind constantly giving up everything before I was ready to. Slowly seeing myself fading into a version of myself that was never meant to even exist.

My childhood and young adult life was stripped away from me right before my eyes so fast I couldn't keep up. Everything that reminded me of my past in anyway was taken, even if it didn't hold any memories of another guy. I didn't even have those by then! Even my wedding dress to my first husband was thrown away- it was a gift that my grandmother made for me that I wanted to hand down to my daughter one day. It didn't have anything to do with my marriage like it might for others. It was a personal object that belong to me, my grandmother and my daughters future. And it had to go.

Now, we do need to pause for a moment and talk about how material objects do not define us and we are not our material things. I know this now and I knew it then. We come into this world with nothing, and when we leave- we will have nothing. Which is SO good and I accept this concept fully.

It's one thing to make the decision on your own. To give up material possessions for the better good in anyway is healthy. To relieve the heavy burden of hoarding and consuming an everlasting gluttony of never having enough. This type of relief is liberating and removes so much toxicity inside ourselves, and we are much better for it.

However, it's another thing when certain things are stripped away from you for no reason except to have control over someones possessions and decisions. My stuff was not his to take and deemed to what he wanted to do with it. We were not married at that time. We barley moved in together. But that's part of how it began. I was slowly becoming his property and therefore, everything I owned now belonged to him. He had to get rid of everything that did not serve him in some way. Everything and everyone.

I have since forgiven him for these actions, and I move on with what I do have. God has always blessed me with items, clothing and other things from people that I never had to buy. God's gracious generosity never paused in my life. This was part of the sadness of giving away my things too soon. God never directed me to give those items away to someone else who needed them more than me. He is the one who gave them to me in the first place and it was meant to stay with me until the right time to give them away. And giving things away now is so beautiful, because I do it with the prompting of the Holy Spirit when He says it's time. And the release is such a beautiful gift for me during the whole process.

I may have sold my soul to a degree when I was selling my clothing prematurely. However, God is a beautiful redeemer and will always restore the years the locusts ate. I can now be at peace knowing He is and will always be my only provider.