It's okay to just throw it away

What if donating, reselling, and recycling are just another form of clutter?

Welcome to the Wednesday Style note on Hand Wash Only. The internet (and let’s face it, me) loves a closet purge—capsule wardrobes, donation guides, resale hacks. But when I finally tried to declutter mine, I couldn’t shake one question: is all this effort just another kind of clutter, delaying the inevitable trip to the trash?

A few weeks ago, I noticed a twinge of stress every time I looked at my closet. A big, looming to-do staring back at me every morning.

When Jack and I moved in August, I told myself I’d use it as a chance to declutter—sifting through everything, making donate/sell/trash piles, carefully deciding what to bring into this next phase. I’d hold each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?”, then spend hours posting listings on Facebook Marketplace and coordinating drop-offs on Depop to make sure my item found its perfect next home.

Decluttering can be healing—responsible, even profitable—but also emotionally draining.

This time around, I just didn’t have it in me. In the author world, there’s something called “pre-book brain,” where, in the months leading up to your book release, you don’t have the mental capacity for anything that isn’t immediately urgent. Cleaning out the closet falls into that quadrant-2 type of task.

Instead, I stuffed all my clothes into boxes, promised myself I’d deal with them later, and closed the lids.

One of the major reasons we avoid decluttering is because of the emotional labor that it entails. The act of sifting through stuff, figuring out what to donate vs. resell, involves a million little tiny decisions during an already anxious time of breaking attachments—many of which are tied to physical things.

Now that life is settling a bit, I am finally ready to face my closet. I’m looking at jeans and thinking, I haven’t worn you in a really long time. Why am I still holding on?

I’m intentional about what I buy and bring into my closet. I even make spreadsheets for big purchases; bags, shoes, anything investment-level. And I try to be just as thoughtful about what I get rid of, making sure it goes to the “right place”: donating (church drop-offs or a Brooklyn stoop), selling so it gets a second life (Buffalo Exchange, Depop), and tossing only as a last resort. But I think this desire to be the perfect closet-cleaner-outer is adding more pressure, and keeps me stuck and holding onto things longer than I need to.

It’s another way of avoiding the “letting go”.

A few days ago, I came across this post on r/declutter that offered a little grace:

What if it was okay to just throw our unwanted items away? What if we gave ourselves a break and thought, “It’s more important to get rid of this thing right now than to figure out what to do with it. I need it out of my space, and throwing it in the trash is the easiest option.”

I like the sound of that.

Yet the comments under the Reddit thread were full of people insisting she should have donated her stuff.

Not only does this directly oppose what she’s trying to communicate: “it’s all destined for landfill anyway”, I’m here to say that the donation route isn’t always the best choice; even Goodwill sends up to 5% of their donations to landfill, with another 45% shipped overseas. It’s leaving it up to someone else to do the sifting.

In Brooklyn, people leave clothes on stoops for months, getting wet and moldy. And even if someone takes them, what if they toss them later anyway?I know we hate to say it, but all of our stuff is destined for the trash.

So I’m here today to let you know it’s okay. It’s okay to just throw it away.

I privately messaged the author of the Reddit post and asked her for the Midwest Magic Cleaning video that suggested such a simple, graceful tip. If you have 48 minutes and want to get inspired to declutter this weekend, it’s a good watch:

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday and I’ll see you back here on Friday for rituals.