My T-shirts

I recently moved. I read quite a long time ago that selling your home and/or moving to a new place of residence was one of the top 10 stress moments in a person’s life.

I’d have to agree with that assessment, but not as it pertains to things like negotiating a sale price, home inspections, or keeping your fingers crossed that nothing springs a leak as you’re tiptoeing out the door.

For me, the most stressful part of the whole experience was what to do with all my T-shirts! Oh, I have certainly a sufficient amount of other clothes, from pants, shirts, socks and underwear, but by my own admission, I have way, way, way too many T-shirts, and attempting to cull them to a manageable amount was causing me to break out in a cold sweat.

You have to understand that I grew up as the T-shirt began its fashion ascendency from a plain white undergarment to a statement all its own, made to be worn and proudly exhibited as the main outerwear covering your upper torso.

Suddenly, it became your calling card, letting everybody know with just a sidewards glance what band you followed, what sports team you liked, and your political concerns.

I jumped in wholeheartedly, quickly amassing shirts in all those categories and even a few more eclectic subjects.

I had a variety of styles from my fire department involvement. FD, EMS, PIO, etc. I had the music bands, some indicating concert tours from over 20 years ago, and everything in between. The Lions Club had T-shirts? Put me in for two—no, make that three.

My problem as I stood frozen in my closet today is that I had formed an emotional bond with all of them. Each shirt that I stared at brought back memories, much like looking at an old family photo album would.

Then I realized that some of them had not been worn in years. Yet, still, I had a hard time grabbing that hanger off the pole.

Finally, I had to take a long, hard look in the mirror and tell myself (while wearing my Bruce Springsteen concert shirt… from 2003) that there was just no way I could physically pack all my shirts and move them to a new closet.

Thus began multiple trips to the local Goodwill store, where I waved goodbye to the bin containing my Eddie Money (autographed and sold to me by the Money man himself) T-shirt with the slightest trace of a tear running down my cheek.

It got no easier the deeper I went into the closet. I had five T-shirts from a circa-2000 Patchogue rock band called SGT. Was I that taken with that band? I did like the music, but it was my son Brian’s band, and my job was primarily as one of their “roadies,” but sometimes I actually sold that “merch,” too. So yeah, those tees had a lot of sentimental value.

So, the surviving pieces of fabric that still fit and were not fading made the trip to my new abode, where they quickly overpowered the remaining closet space.

I’ll need to recover from the move, but I see myself diving once again into tossing another 20 or more T-shirts, if I can bear it. Maybe sometime in 2028…