I have too many clothes.

As you get older, you get less “trendier,” I suppose, and you change styles less often. My “style” — if I have one — has been pretty static for a few decades. That’s why I have more blue and white oxford cloth, button-down shirts than I can wear. And more pairs of khaki pants.

I pulled a pair from the closet the other day and noticed a yellow laundry label clipped to a belt loop. My laundry hasn’t used yellow labels in a long time,I thought. A check of the date showed those pants had been hanging neatly, all creased and ready, in my closet since June of 2012.

I’m thankful they still fit.

One thing is certain. If I have too many clothes, my wife has TOO MANY CLOTHES!

My clothes take up, appropriately, my side of one closet. My wife’s clothes take up her side, plus nearly every other closet in our home. And that includes two more bedrooms upstairs and some attic space. I strongly suspect she may have her own permanent rack area at the laundry she uses as unpaid storage.

But reckoning day is coming.

We are downsizing. Our home is for sale and we’re moving to a new (for us) home with about half the square footage. That means not just furniture will soon be going by the way, but lots more. Especially clothes.

The good wife has already warned my library of books may be on the “do not move” list. That is still up for discussion, in my opinion, but, while we’re narrowing things down, I think umpty-dozen pairs of high-heel shoes can certainly be discarded, not to mention a like number of sandals.

How many shoes can a woman wear?

Looking through my closet makes me think my choices may be easier. There’s that souvenir jacket I bought in San Francisco with all the bright colors. I’ve never worn it even once. I must have been touring Haight-Ashbury at the time and sniffed some weed or something. Why did I buy that gaudy thing ?! And there’s a plaid shirt that could  help me be seen a mile away — if I had ever worn it. But I haven’t. Another souvenir shirt, from an event 15 years ago I can probably part with. See, honey: I can sacrifice.

Our present home has a library with lots of bookshelves. The new home doesn’t. Yet.

This isn’t gonna be easy.

Robert M. Williams Jr. is an Effingham native now living in Blackshear. He publishes weekly newspapers in Blackshear, Alma, Folkston, McRae and Forsyth. Email him at rwilliams@atc.cc.