My husband and I began packing for a short trip the day before we were to leave. Packing. That’s what we were supposed to be doing. However, the endeavor turned into something else.

As my husband took a pair of dress trousers from the closet, he decided to try them on, since he hadn’t worn them for a while. Whoops. Kinda baggy. Then he took out another pair of dress pants. Too big. And another.

The parade of pants began. He tried on each pair. Where they all came from, I have no idea. I concluded he liked buying pants. Black, tan, gray. And jeans.

The pants emerged and fell into categories. The 42 x 30s. The 40 x 30s. The 38 x 30s. And the 36x30s. Aha. The 36 x 30s fit.

He’d gradually been losing weight, as instructed by his doctor. The problem was, as he lost the weight, he simply bought new pants and put them randomly into the closet. And didn’t take any out. All the sizes had merged together.

The result? After much searching for labels to check size and trying on pair after pair, my husband assembled 12 pairs of trousers, all hanging on hangers, three pairs still with their store tags, for the local Goodwill store. As we dropped them off, he said, “There goes my life in pants.”

He traced which pair he’d worn to a friend’s wedding (according to a cocktail napkin found in a pocket), to buy a car (according to the salesman’s business card found you know where), to go to a party (according to a Post-it with directions found in … you guessed it.)

Some pants were simply “favorites,” broken-in and comfortable, good for watching games on TV and hanging out. Who knew there was such sentiment and history in pants?

We still have shirts and sport coats to go through ….

I glanced at my own part of the closet and thought I’d better do the same with my clothes. Take the time to clean out what wasn’t being worn. Little did I realize that packing for a short trip would launch the spring cleaning of closets.

And as I thought more about it, I wondered if I could spring clean my cranium, too. Get rid of some of the old stuff hanging in there.

You know what I’m talking about. The tapes that keep playing about things that should be over and done with. The faded old ideas. The worries I can’t control. Make room so that exciting new thoughts can hang there and be seen and tried on and worn.

A blouse of a new story. A dress of a novel chapter. A tee shirt of metaphors. A necklace of poetry. A garment bag holding a philosophy of life based on honesty and kindness.

It’s spring cleaning and time to revamp “my life in thought.” I’ll slip a lavender sachet into “the closet.”