why I, a woman, don't desire a bigger closet

I walked into our closet this morning and looked at my husbands side of the closet. I don't often do this because the urge to throw out some of his stuff overwhelms me. That sounds horrible, I know, but my husband has a problem. He is a pack rat. When it comes to clothes and accessories, I don't think he has rid his closet of anything since 1999. And as a result, we are drowing in random screen printed tee shirts, old frayed flannel shirts, holey jeans, and piles of hats. As I am sitting there cursing him for his mounds of useless clothing, my focus zeroed in on the hats. As I looked at them, I realized that each of them represented certain times in his life. High School phase, the Band phase, the mission phase, BYU student phase, working at Richmond phase ( a particularly bad phase), and The Navy Reserve phase (Save that story for another post). And suddenly my moment of cursing him and his ever growing piles of useless stuff, changed gears into gratitude. Gratitude for the many different hats he has worn in his life for me. The phases he has gone through that haven't been the easiest or the most fun he has done to make our life as a family better. And there have been many hats he has worn and loved but had to put away for more important things. There are many hats he would love to wear but can't because of all he is already doing for me and his gaggle of children. So I am standing in the closet, this morning full of gratitude and love for my husband's efforts on my behalf. Then I turn to walk out and I trip on one of his 50 pairs of shoes. Then that love and gratitude moment passed right on by.