Happy closet

If closets are capable of feeling emotions, my closet would probably be grinning from ear to ear right now. For the first time since I bought it last year, my closet is filled with clean freshly-ironed clothes.

I generally dislike ironing clothes for a host of reasons. For one, sorry but I am born lazy. For another, the whole activity makes me feel hot, and not in a good way. I do not know if it is just laziness, but it takes a lot of effort for me to press a single piece of clothing. I hate that wrinkles set in the second you hang the item, or put them on, whichever comes first. Hence, my usual policy on clothes is “iron as you go,” or “buy clothes that do not need ironing.” Because I have not ironed anything more than three items of clothing at a time, I never thought ironing can be therapeutic.

My idea of therapy is doing chores that would involve me getting in contact with water. For therapy, I would wash clothes, do the dishes, clean the comfort room, water the plants, mop the walls and floors, never iron clothes. But last Thursday, for the first time in a long while – heck, for the first time in my life really – I ironed my clothes.

It was close to midnight and I was having a hard time trying to sleep. Counting sheep was not really working, so, without ado, I pulled out the wrinkled clothes out of my closet and put them on the bed. I took out virtually all the clothes from the closet. I plugged the flat iron and started ironing the easy ones – t-shirts, shorts. Then I took out some of the clothes I haven’t worn in the last two years, and thought, well, why not? I was not going to the office the next day so might as well. I realized I do not need starch for some clothes and that the water spray bottle can work wonders.

I proceeded with the more difficult ones – gusot-mayaman blouses, dresses with ruching and skirts with impossible pleats. At about three in the morning, I was starting to feel tired, and I remembered a scary movie which says that 3:00 in the morning is the witching hour, and this is when the devil is most powerful. I freaked out a little, but concentrated on finishing my task at hand.

As I was ironing my flimsy blouses, I remember my mother asking me why I like to buy clothes whose material resembles tissue, because they are very difficult to iron and they get creased easily. And then after a while, I did something I have not done in a really long time. I cried.

I cried because I remember my mother ironing my clothes every weekend. I cried because I realized just now how difficult it must have been for her to iron all our clothes, since the time we were young up to the time she died. I realized how much labor of love she has poured into caring for all of us, while having a full-time job at the same time. And I realize how much I really really miss her, and how I would give anything in the world just to be with her one more time, to kiss her one more time.

And so I ironed my clothes and thought that doing little things like this are part of loving yourself too. ###