Last Saturday, I suddenly thought of searching through the laundry pile for a couple pieces of clothing that had gone missing for a long period. What a strange thing to come to mind when there are possibly more pressing worries out there. But evidently, those were matters for another day. Saturday was laundry day, and the only thing that mattered was laundry.
I had this faint impression of asking my sister some months back, if any of my laundry had somehow gotten mixed up with hers as well as the brother-in-law’s, naming the specific clothing that had gone missing. She quickly glanced through their laundry and assessed that it was not the case, although she had indeed taken some of my laundry and hung it up beside hers to air dry.
On a side note, I have no issues with people hanging lingerie and underwear for the other gender beside my own laundry, but apparently I was told that some people get shy about it. I fail to understand why this has become an issue for some.
Anyway, back to topic.
Laundry Diving
After my sister assessed that my clothing was not mixed in – and I also figured that it was unlikely my brother-in-law would have accidentally worn it as well given that I am dwarfed by him – I left it at that. Until last Saturday. Somehow, I decided that it was a good time to sift through the laundry pile, for the off-chance that my clothes might have somehow gotten pushed all the way to the bottom, joining the ever-growing “dunked and forgotten” pile.
I found, in approximate order, give or take a few pieces:
- Several other clothings I do not recognise, but appear to be of feminine sizing, which therefore means that it belongs to the sole other female member in the household (the mother)
- Several socks that I do not recognise, because my socks in recent years have been from Uniqlo and H&M.
- A bedsheet I previously swapped out
- One of my previously unaccounted-for clothes (a pair of white shorts from Uniqlo)
- A white patterned shirt belonging to me, that I completely forgot about
- The green curtains in my room that I swapped out ahead of Chinese New Year 2021
I stopped digging after I reached the curtains. I dunked the shorts and shirt into the washing machine, reuniting them with the rest of my wardrobe. The shirt was unfortunately yellowed from disuse and/or age. I remember I bought this from a shop in Melbourne back in 2018. But in it went anyway, in the hopes that a good swirling in the wash would somehow cure the problem. It might be high time to separate my clothes into my own laundry pile, to avoid my clothes going missing next time.
Outdated Wardrobe
It occurred to me that a lot of my clothes are of considerable age. One of my shirts is from Espirit. I bought it back when they had an outlet store at AMK Hub. The store has long shuttered; the space it once occupied is now shared by two restaurants. I ate some rice dish from one of the restaurants there a long time back. I do not remember what it was, but you’re not missing out on anything. It was horrendously salty.
Back to the clothes. That I’m able to wear them at all; that they’re still in good, wearable condition, is probably a testament to how well-made they are. Yet, there is no denying that they are in essence a relic of the past, a reflection of dated fashion trends…if there was one back then. For all you know, old clothes may even look more fashion-forward today. These days it seems that you can just slap a logo onto a t-shirt and sell it for upwards of 40 to 60+ SGD. How about I do that, if I ever get around to coming up with my own merch line?
Frankly, it is strange how searching for and dunking clothes in a washing machine can trigger an entire blog post. I think I just have quite a bit on my mind these days, what with searching for a new day job and all. I scrolled through job listings, sent out some resumes, and answered some calls from unknown numbers thinking they were from hiring managers. All while continuing to work. It was supposed to be my streaming break for this week, but I confess I spent more than half of them working. And I even caught a throat infection to boot, although it’s clearing up with the help of medication I was prescribed on Friday.
New Clothes
My friend also sent me a link to some “mid-careerist job transition” page, saying he saw it from some ad. The landing page on the SkillsFuture (skills upgrading) website, listed some courses, some which were subsidised. I spent at least part of my streaming break browsing through the courses instead of clearing my to-do list. This is an important crossroads in life, people. I need something that I can do in the long term, addresses financial needs, while at the same time, protecting this work-life balance that I am largely content with right now.
I have been told that my bar for “work-life balance” is a bit too low, but frankly I deem “not waking up in cold sweat and with a pounding heartbeat” to be good work-life balance already. Pretty good, in fact, is what I can tell you from first-hand experience that I would rather not have. I haul my ass out of bed, I work, I get to go back on time and stream. Sometimes I have to cancel a couple streams or move my schedule around to accommodate some overtime, but that’s fine by me as long as I don’t have to answer calls and messages even when on stream like back in 2020.
That aside, there’s also the issue of free credits lying around unused – to the tune of $1,000, with half of this balance expiring sometime in 2025 for myself.
Speaking perhaps metaphorically and literally at the same time, I think it’s time for some new clothes in the wardrobe so that I have more options on what to wear.
But at the same time, just because the clothes are old, doesn’t mean they’re immediately unwearable. Like that yellowed shirt that I found. I did a little bit of Googling and found that baking soda might be a possible solution to remove the yellowing. So perhaps what is needed is a little work on them, to see where it goes. Maybe I should also dig around in the laundry pile further, since there might be some old interest that is just lying forgotten, all the way at the bottom of the pile.
I’ll soak that shirt in a tub with baking soda dissolved in it…when I get to it.
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