Skeletons and Closets

In a recent variety of news reports, the phrase "Skeletons in the closet" came up more than once.

I have no idea of how common of a phrase this is in modern parlance, but for those that do not know, the phrase simply refers to something that is hidden in one's background which, if discovered, would create a response similar to an actual body being found in one's closet.

For most people - and most life lessons - the best possible situation is to have no skeletons at all in one's closet, to live in such a way that there are no bodies to embarrass you, which is swimmingly good advice (of course).  The actual fact is that most of us have something - a person, a relationship, a story, and experience - which we just as soon would wish never came to the light of day.

But today, I would push the focus in an entirely different direction - on not having closets in the first place.

Closets, those ubiquitous small rooms with doors and small walkthroughs, are ever present in the modern home.  Every bedroom has one, most master bedrooms have a larger one, and there are inevitably one or two scattered throughout the home.  They were (I suppose) considered a great improvement over the previous existence of only wardrobes, which were smaller and took up space in rooms.

But unlike a wardrobe, a closet is not always visible.  And so we put thing sin there very easily - and out of sight is too often out of mind.  And we keep putting things in there until they are overloaded and we have to "clean" them out or we simply forget what we had put in there in the first place.  And thus they become breeding grounds of clutter and potential risk (back to the skeleton).

The solution?  Eliminate the closets in our lives.

What are the closest of our lives?  It can be different for everyone.  For me, it is when I have an activity or a relationship which I consciously disassociate from the rest of my life - something that needs to be hidden for some reason.  I pull it out to do it and put it away - in a closet of my own making - when I am done.

But if I studiously put away the closets - integrate the thing into my life or stop doing it altogether (especially if it is wrong) the need for a closet completely disappears.  And thus, the risk of being embarrassed by a body falling out also completely disappears.

I am sure that I will not completely eliminate the closets in my life after this essay.  But I can make great strides in reducing them to locations of storage instead of location of concealment.