Keep or Donate

“What do ya think—keep or donate?”

Lorelei was holding up a shrunken red sweater that I had thrifted a few years back. It had been poorly washed and cared for when I pulled it off the rack at one of the many overpriced thrift stores in the Haight. Still, I was happy to pay $40 for it despite its condition. Its shrunken qualities were appealing at the time, but now its melted acrylic yarn and sleeves that stopped awkwardly at mid-wrist had secured its position at the bottom of my dresser.

“Donate for sure,” I said decisively, despite the hesitation I felt over whether I really wanted to get rid of it.

I’ve always hesitated when it comes to getting rid of things. Lorelei has the opposite problem. In fact, it’s become a running joke in our family. I’ve personally witnessed her swiftly tossing a perfectly decent half-rack of ribs in the garbage after a family barbecue, simply because she knew no one would eat them the next day. I’ve always respected her realism when it comes to letting go of things that no longer serve you. That’s why I invited her over to help me pack.

“That’s what I thought, too,” she replied. “Probably won’t need a sweater for the majority of the time, anyway.”

After living in the foggier parts of San Francisco for the last five years, that’s all I’ve come to fill my wardrobe with. Smart-looking knits, far too many oversized denim jackets, and endless Free People long sleeves. “Perfect for Layering!” the advertising screamed—essential for the moody microclimates of the city.

Looking up from the creaky, lived-in floor of my closet, I could place myself in every phase of my life through my clothes.

There were my go-to pair of vintage green Dickies—the ones I was lounging in at Golden Gate Park when a disc golf frisbee landed on my woven red-and-white picnic blanket, knocking me out of an intimate trance with Crying in H Mart. The disc was escaping a scruffy-looking boy who came running out from the dense trees that outline the park. His brown skin glowed with sweat beneath the unseasonally bright sun, which also made his faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt cling to the adorable chub of his lower belly. He wore a pensive furrow between his brows, one I would eventually become very familiar with.

“Looking for your… thing?” I said, waving the purple-and-green UFO in his direction.

His smile was fox-like, mischievous and cunning. I was just a plump cat lounging in the sun, ripe for the hunt. I wish I’d known how he’d tear me apart from that moment.

“Yes! Sorry, did it hit you?” he asked between breaths.

“Just from the spot on my page, but I’ll recover,” I said, struggling to be witty.

He laughed while his eyes moved quickly from my book to the joint that I had long put out, and lastly to me, completing this picture before him. He could always read situations quickly. Later, he’d tell me that what prompted him to ask for my number was the weed—and how good my ass looked in those Dickies.

I put the Dickies in the pile with the rest of what we’d deemed reasonable enough to travel with me.

I reached for the forest-green hoodie I was wearing a year and a half later when he told me he had decided he needed to be alone to work on himself.

“This could be the worst decision I’ve ever made, but I’ll always regret it if I don’t do it now, Hales,” he cried, while I stared down at the silver, sparkly “Goddess” appliqué that adorned the hoodie.

I felt both the world being ripped out from under me and the sting of irony at how un-goddess-like the moment was.

That was six months ago, and those sparkly letters still taunt me.

The hoodie joins the shrunken sweater in the garbage bag destined for Goodwill.

One has to pack light when moving overseas, after all.

“Hales... Haley! You didn’t say anything about what you wanna do with all fifty of these crochet beanies, so I took that to mean you don’t want them.”

The floor creaks beneath Lorelei as she shoves the last of my closet into the bag, ties the orange plastic ropes in knots, and heaves it into the living room.

I trail behind her as little sisters often do.

My studio had felt small enough before, but now, among a sea of opaque trash bags containing the remnants of my life—screaming at me from behind their Hefty walls—it felt as though they were taking up all the air in the room. I grasped the wall to keep myself upright.

Lorelei must have felt it too, because she went to open the window, letting in the cold ocean winds that typically rip through the city in August, carrying with them a veil of fog that keeps summer at bay until fall.

I’m sad I won’t be around then, it really is the most beautiful time to be in the city.

My mind instinctively trails to what he’ll likely be doing then. He usually stays busy with his friends, a major difference between my preference for solitude and his unease with it. That familiar sting of jealousy returns when I picture him at a bar, probably somewhere he frequents, like The Page or Vesuvio.

Charming the next fat cat that purrs in his direction.

My eyes begin to burn. This is a habit I’m anxious to rid myself of.

I’m hopeful that the healing properties of the Mediterranean will carry me far away from this place and the feelings it surfaces. Hopeful that he’ll be picturing me—tanned and whole on the Italian coast, then in Barcelona, hiking the green Scottish hills, frequenting cannabis cafés in Amsterdam, and finally settling into my new flat in Lisbon.

Do his eyes burn when he conjures the beauty of this new life of mine?

Will he fill himself into the empty, shapeless space that could have been his, as I so often do?

“Hey, don’t worry! We’ll get all this shit out of here, and then you’ll be free,” Lorelei says, reassuring and eager to throw everything away as always.

I rest my head on her shoulder.

“I feel free already.”