Steve Canavan: Looking back on my life as I clear out my wardrobe

Deriving pleasure from tidy drawers and bin bags full of old clothes... welcome to middle age
‘It felt weirdly good to go back to the house and look at a really tidy wardrobe’‘It felt weirdly good to go back to the house and look at a really tidy wardrobe’
‘It felt weirdly good to go back to the house and look at a really tidy wardrobe’

Here’s a funny thing about having small children: that sheer joy one used to feel at finishing work for a couple of weeks no longer exists.

In fact two days into this Christmas holiday I emailed the boss asking if I could go back in on a voluntary, unpaid basis (‘Dear Geoff. Look I know the office is shut until January but I’ve two children under the age of three and quite frankly if you don’t let me return to work I fear I may be in a mental asylum come the new year. Merry Christmas, Steve’).

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It’s not that I don’t adore my kids. I absolutely do, and recently even hugged one of them. It’s just I’m not very good at spending extended periods of time with them.

I mean as much as I enjoy building a train out of Duplo, turning the sofa into a pretend pirate ship (on reflection the word ‘pretend’ is unnecessary there), or reading for the 451st time a book about a chameleon called Colin who makes a hat out of feathers so Gerry the Giraffe won’t stand on him, there are other things in life I’m more keen on.

If I could mix with the kids for, say, an hour or two a day for instance, that would be perfect. Then I could spend the remainder of my time doing the stuff I really enjoy, like reading, writing, and naked skydiving (Mrs Canavan bought me lessons in the latter for Christmas; I was unsure at first but it really is quite exhilarating and certainly impressed Janet at number three when I practiced in the front garden yesterday).

On the rare occasions the kids aren’t about, I am left jobs to do by Mrs Canavan, one of which was to have a clear out of my wardrobe on account of the fact it is beginning to buckle at the weight of my jumper collection.

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I do like a jumper. In fact such is my collection I’d go as far as to say I have the wool from about half the entire sheep population of the Lake District in my possession.

At first I railed against Mrs C’s insistence it was time for a clear out but she shouted me down. “You don’t wear half the jumpers you own,” she chirped.

“Nonsense,” I replied, randomly reaching into the wardrobe and pulling out a navy blue sweater. “Take this one. I wore this in 2007 when we visited that rare tortoise exhibition at Tatton Park.”

“Point proved,” snapped Mrs Canavan, and displaying the tact and compromise I’ve always thought would make her ideal for leading peace talks between North and South Korea, added: “Now shut up and get it cleared out.”

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And so it was that a couple of days back I spent several hours going through my wardrobe and drawers and chucking at least half the contents into two big bin liners.

Some of the choices for discarding were simple, like the hideous bright orange T-shirt I purchased a decade or so ago when I was in my 30s and still had a vague interest in fashion.

Printed on the front, in green, are the words ‘NEW YORK CITY’ and below is a picture of two people on a motorbike.

I have no idea what prompted me to buy a T-shirt in a colour I dislike, depicting a form of transport I don’t own and have no interest in, and displaying the name of a city I have never visited and have no desire to do so, but needless to say it was hurled into a bin liner.

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Others items were trickier, such as the black football shorts I’ve owned for at least 15 years and have used every week since for my five-a-side session. The elastic is gone and I spend at least 20 minutes of each hour-long game hitching them back up above my buttocks, but there’s something comforting about them. It’s as if throwing them out might be the catalyst for some terrible event to happen. Throwing them out would be almost like relinquishing one of my children. They have survived the last five clear-outs, but this time – in a moment of ruthlessness – I hurled them into a bag.

Anyway, long story short I got rid of loads of stuff and took it, before I could change my mind, to the recycling bins at a Sainsbury’s down the road.

It felt weirdly good to go back to the house and look at a really tidy wardrobe and drawers and the saddest thing of all – and proof I really have hit middle-age – is that whenever I’ve walked into the bedroom since, I pause and think, ‘nice wardrobe’ and inwardly congratulated myself on its cleanliness and order. It’s pathetic.

Anyway, I’d like to write more but the children have just run into my room and want me to help build a zoo out of a load of plastic animals they got for Christmas.

I’ve never missed work so much.

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