Barely worn

I’m drowning in stuff. Flotsam and jetsam everywhere, collected over the years, clinging for dear life to shelves, nooks, under the bed, stacked up in withered pages. Bank statements from 3 years ago. A birthday card I can’t bear to part with. An uncomfortable pair of boots that I bought during a moment of creative bravery that I can’t pull off or be bothered to sell. Each thing living a dusty, untouched life in my home, living there because at one moment in time, I let them reside here, their use sidelined for an inevitable future purpose. Of course, I’ll need this unfashionable raincoat, I told myself in 2019. Surely this extra box of the Yasmin contraceptive pill will come into use one day, I said, as I stuffed it into the bottom of my medicine drawer.

I want to scream. There is stuff everywhere, and every time I visit a friend’s house that’s impeccably tidy, considered and curated, I tell myself that I must clean up my stuff. It is imperative. I will start today.

I begin with the clothes.

As a trend-conscious teenager who had a taste for Zara, Topshop (RIP) and other high street gems of the 2000s, stores that churned out scratchy cardigans and polyester dresses, I have a lot of the stuff. I take photos – front, back, labels, that weird stain you can’t get out that you’re certain is turmeric – and I upload to Vinted. The clothes lie in a shimmering, colourful pile on my bed as I repeat the cycle for each piece of clothing, flinging them onto the ever-growing mountain of poor fashion choices with reckless abandon.

The messages start. People haggle, demanding 30 euros off a 50 euro jacket, asking for more photos, decrying the delivery options, and asking me if I’d swap for something of theirs. Surely, I think as I package up a never-worn silk shirt, this has to be how merchants in pulsating souks and markets across the world feel as they haggle and sell their goods. The thrill of the €7 sale radiates through my veins as I make the 20-minute journey to deliver my package to a shop that sells auto manufacturing parts on my lunch break. I feel like a travelling saleswoman pawning off my wares. I half imagine myself on a commune in the future, bartering nuts and berries for metal scraps and wood to build…something?

But when I get to the shop, excited to deliver my pre-loved garment to its new, exciting life, I’m greeted by a sign that declares simply:

“NO VINTED”

I stand in the rain, defeated, clutching my binbag-wrapped package. Trudging home, I promise myself I’ll go tomorrow and try again. It won’t end up on my dresser or squeezed into a drawer for the next two years, I reassure myself, its purpose cemented, destined for a date far into the future.

Get in touch.
@fraeji everywhere