The Importance of Keeping Things That Spark Rage

February 4, 2019 4:36 PM

I have a drawer overflowing with socks. Most serve a utilitarian purpose. A few genuinely do delight me (Marie Kondo would be proud). And tucked in the back are the wool socks I’ve kept for 23 years.
posted by adamcarson (29 comments total)

...the wool socks I’ve kept for 23 years.

Interestingly (to me, at least), I have a pair of wool socks I've been wearing now for almost 43 years. For the first long stretch of time – decades – I never actually walked in them, but used them only in a sleeping bag while backpacking, so that I had at least one dry pair at night. As time passed, it started to feel odd that I'd had the socks for 20, 25, 30 years, so I started wearing them inside shoes, and by now they're pretty much shot. But still in service.

They definitely don't spark rage in me, but not really any love either. (Sorry, Marie.) It just occured to me that if I was going to end up in a coffin – which seems unlikely – I could ask people to put them on me at the end, and I could wear them for a really long time.
posted by LeLiLo at 4:57 PM on February 4, 2019 [11 favorites]

I needed to read this, so thank you for posting it here. I have an unworn, beautifully handknit pair of socks in the back of a drawer, a gift 15? 20? years ago from my sister. She'd carefully cut out part of the yarn label and tucked it into one of the toes. She also made a unifying pair for herself and our third sister.

It reads "Evil Stepmother".

So. Never worn for reasons, and kept -- treasured almost -- because someone else saw what I saw and had some of the experiences I had in our family, and it was validating.

At this point, it is still good for my sanity to keep these socks in my house though I doubt I'll ever wear them even once. If and when that changes and they go out in a donation pile, I'll be torn. Do I finally remove the piece of paper from that toe? Or will they be found by someone else who needs evil stepmother socks to know they're not alone?
posted by vers at 5:07 PM on February 4, 2019 [7 favorites]

This was lovely. I do wish she'd been able to tell him off at the end. But maybe this piece is more effective. Now he's a story that she crafted to reveal his ugliness to the world.
posted by emjaybee at 5:11 PM on February 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Sometimes even 20 years later, you keep that anger and that item to remind yourself why you keep fighting - not always for yourself, but so other women don't get hurt by the same kind of person.

I have my own pair of metaphorical socks (I have a similar item it's just not a sock), and they're the reason I work to keep other people safe, and to teach people not to treat anyone the way I was treated.
posted by FritoKAL at 5:17 PM on February 4, 2019 [14 favorites]

I thought about the wool socks I had in the '90s, I pictured them, and there they were. Warm enough, but after a while the warp was actively irritating to your feet.

I destroyed the stuff my bad boyfriends gave me, either out of rage or a desire to forget. The nicer things I gave away. Now, when I think of it, I regret it a bit, especially the cassette-tape correspondence (remember sending those?) and the writings. It might have helped me realize, over the years, what absolute sewer clowns they were. Instead, for years, I thought of them as handsome young men that I failed to be strong and beautiful enough to keep.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:19 PM on February 4, 2019 [12 favorites]

"There are things that we keep not because they bring us happiness but because they serve as some sort of record of the bullshit we’ve been through."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:22 PM on February 4, 2019 [11 favorites]

What a sad little man.
posted by evilDoug at 5:27 PM on February 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

I want to buy her a really good drink and tell her to throw out those janky old socks.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:32 PM on February 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

Do you ever read something about a person (usually a man, not always) and you get the urge to set that person on fire? My god what an asshole. I'm so glad the author of this piece married a much better man. But yeah, keeping the socks is... maybe not the healthiest of behaviors.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 5:36 PM on February 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Since watching the movie Venom, I've found myself experiencing the most peculiar recurring fantasy: the burning need in my soul for other women to be gifted with an alien symbiote, in order to eat the heads of those that oppose them. I got to that bit where he drove 2 hours to neg and slut-shame her and there it was again. I just desperately want her to eat him.

This essay was lovely. But it would have been improved if her alien parasite had immediately eaten him.
posted by a hat out of hell at 6:06 PM on February 4, 2019 [26 favorites]

Mod note: Couple of comments deleted. Let's not derail onto an internal fight over whether other people can have responses to this essay. If you want to engage with the essay, great.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:09 PM on February 4, 2019

In episode 2 of the Netflix series, the Empty Nesters uncover some family mementos from a deeply painful time. Those items obviously spark grief and hurt. Marie Kondo did not for one second suggest that the family not keep them.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 6:32 PM on February 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

you know he re-gifted those socks to her
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:36 PM on February 4, 2019 [9 favorites]

I really think Kondotrarians should read the book before fighting with it--if you care enough about the socks to write an essay, Kondo is not going to steal the socks and put them on her tidying bonfire next to unread copies of Infinite Jest.

Anyway, her ex sounds like the kind of asshole who would be vain enough to be pleased about having a little territory in her sock drawer.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:09 PM on February 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

I saw something on Tumblr the other day to the effect of "Marie Kondo does not want you to give up your weird shit, Marie Kondo wants you to get rid of everything except your weird shit". Which I actually don't think is wrong, having recently read her book, though I haven't seen the show to see how she's refined stuff since then. But the phrasing is alienating. The whole book felt alienating, as a person who's had trouble with mental health problems, as a person who's had a lot of rough history in general, as a person who doesn't do gender conforming and doesn't own stockings and is never going to have a husband.

She's a very magical thinker. I don't think there's actually anything wrong with that for things like home organization that mostly originate in one's own head. Some people are never going to fit in that style of things well, and maybe some people need a version with more black magic.
posted by Sequence at 7:17 PM on February 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Sequence, one of the reasons Straw Kondo irritates me is that I had and have many issues, which I'm not going to discuss publicly here, and her book helped me through a couple of very dark times and some times of grief.

(I'm never going to have a husband or wife, but I don't see what that has to do with anything.)

Her method isn't for everyone, but the I find it more interesting when her actual ideas are challenged. For example, she would definitely side-eye the socks.

"As for accessories you received as gifts, keep them only if they bring you pure joy. If you are keeping them because you can’t forget a former boyfriend, it’s better to discard or donate them. Hanging on to them makes it more likely that you will miss opportunities for new relationships. It is not our memories but the person we have become because of those past experiences that we should treasure. This is the lesson these keepsakes teach us when we sort them. The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past."

The bold text is mine because it's something I've thought about and I don't know if I agree with it.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:35 PM on February 4, 2019 [9 favorites]

Frankly, I'm tired of seeing Marie Kondo stuff everywhere, and I wish people would at least let me dislike it without being all "but you haven't read the booook" which is like, no, of course I haven't, because I don't want to. I'm not trying to accuse her of anything bad, and I'm sure she's perfectly lovely if you're into that sort of thing, but for the love of god, this is the first time in a while that it feels like a pop culture thing is actually being shoved in my face. 2019: year of Kondo.

As much as I appreciate this article (and her ex sounds massively shitty), I wish it wasn't framed around yet another KonMari: for/against thing, and just stood on its own as an article about those socks and why she still has them. Because that story is good and interesting, even if I know that it might not have been worth writing about if not as a response to this prevailing cultural phenomenon. Still, opening up for an argument about whether or not someone truly understands Marie Kondo is beyond dreary to me at this point.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:42 PM on February 4, 2019 [7 favorites]

Back to the essay, this was wonderful, deeply personal and immediately relatable. Maybe it's just me, but I absolutely grok keeping something like those socks.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:54 PM on February 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

I’ve spent so much time reading about (and looking at) visible mending that my first thought was, wait, you can fix that hole. Which is of course completely missing the point. Still I did like the essay, and I think she should use the socks to clean up dog poop, and then toss them in a dumpster.
posted by tuesdayschild at 7:55 PM on February 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

She knows this shit bisquit narcissist reads her stuff, and he will read this essay. It is her rebuttal to him, and as such, is perfect. My god, my link with this is the socks, I only throw out my Costco wool socks when they are about that bad. She just needs to make the accompanying video of their burning. My toes are wiggling in wool socks this very moment.
posted by Oyéah at 7:56 PM on February 4, 2019 [7 favorites]

Oh, for fucks' sake Article. MK Hunter Killer is not coming for (imaginary defensive person's) X. Product is being sold and commentary on product is being sold and oh God, I hate myself because I can feel I'm so close to shouting "wake up sheeple!" to people who largely share similar, nuanced views anyway. Graah!

Anyhow, shit superpower, but I am a notorious, nay legendary sock destroyer. I used to buy these branded, definitely not wool, "Indestructible Socks" and they were great and definitely held out much longer than any others, but I murdered the heels and toes all the same eventually. No sock survives contact with the end of me.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:20 PM on February 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I like the link that says thrift shops are filling up, because we've been joking about that lately and didn't know if we were imagining it. Thrift shops are full of good stuff right now.
posted by bongo_x at 1:15 AM on February 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have an object that is a reminder like those socks of a really unhealthy relationship. I’ve kept it since 1996.

This was a good essay to read.
posted by sciencegeek at 2:53 AM on February 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

my first thought was, wait, you can fix that hole. Which is of course completely missing the point.

I have a pair of cheap jeans from 1998. I've fixed them very visibly, multiple times, and don't intend to stop. I patch the holes with rejected canvas scraps from artists I know. They look slightly clownish I guess, but I keep them.

It's not missing the point, it is the point.
posted by saysthis at 3:10 AM on February 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I appreciate that some people need reminders, or totems. I, personally, do not. I've got a head full of annoying memories, and that's more than enough.

Whether it's unhealthy or not is very individual. One person's sweeping under the rug is another's burning it down and salting the earth. I'm not going to judge.

Good article, thanks for posting.
posted by cage and aquarium at 3:12 AM on February 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Recently, I had a friend (Z.) who behaved shittily enough as to doom our ten-year friendship, who denied that she had done so, doubled down, and treated my shocked, hurt, and eventually angry reaction as if it were the beginning of the spiralling downward causal chain. She wasn’t a girlfriend, but someone I had been getting closer to and spending a lot of time with, a pal, I thought (like a number of other close platonic women friends I have), and whom I thought I could trust. But her willful misconstruings of nearly everything I said in the wake of this incident, her volatile reactiveness, her self-absorption, and, eventually, statements that I (!) had never cared about her - a defensive litany of self-righteousness - as well as odd defences she’d made in the weeks immediately prior to this of a) a play with patronizing racist subtexts and b) the self-serving, non-apology that serial sexual abuser Jian Ghomeshi got published in the New York Review of Books, something that no other women I knew thought was at all legit, made me reevaluate the judgment and character of this person I thought I knew, and eventually (it took a couple of months of agonizing over it) decide that the friendship was not salvageable. (Other close friends, mostly women, urged me to walk away from it.)

But I had, I now realize, a considerable emotional investment in this friendship, wanting to salvage it, and so I tended throughout this reevaluation process to repeatedly second-guess myself (to the point where the woman friend (T.) in whom I most confided about it, who gave me valuable perspective on it, became a bit exasperated that I wasn’t seeing how I had in fact been emotionally abused), and think, ah, well, I should really try yet again to explain myself to her, to get her to see the pain I’m in - she’ll finally get it! - only to get more of the same kind of distortions of my words thrown back at me when I did. It took looking back at the text messages from her that had begun this (which I had screenshot and saved and shown to T., saying, does this look like a normal reaction to you? - answer: no, this is definitely very odd) and thus being reminded how awful, how off, how insensitive and uncharitable she had been (and continued to be), for me to stiffen my resolve to put this behind me.

Thus, my record of those messages serves the same purpose for me as those socks do for that author. (I’ve stuffed them in a metaphorical back of a drawer - a folder several levels down on my laptop with everything I’ve written about this, to Z. and to myself - and those messages from Z.) I can go back and remind myself when I need to that, yes, it really was that awful, and thus not lull myself into a state where I would be shocked all over again by any further iterations of her consistently awful and distressing messages since this began.

So, yes, I can relate to the author keeping a dismal memento of the abuse she suffered from this asshole, because of the tendency one has to remember the best and forget the worst. On the one hand, sure, her abuser can be said to be “renting out a little tiny space in her head” (another old friend of mine, a woman I grew up with, used a similar metaphor: “No one has a right to live rent-free in your head”, during our long phone conversations about this), but on the other hand, when one has had a shaky sense of self-worth that has been thoroughly manipulated by such a person, and the consequent tendency to take blame upon oneself where it’s actually inappropriate, it’s helpful to have some token that serves to remind oneself that no, it’s not me, it’s really them, after all. It steels one against a repeat of that abuse. It’s part of affirming one’s self-worth. It’s necessary self-defence. And that, in a backhanded kind of way, is keeping something that sparks joy even as it rekindles a bit of the outrage one had felt about the abuse.
posted by Philofacts at 3:19 AM on February 5, 2019 [4 favorites]

Any tips on how to repair heels in socks? That's called darning, right? But what about when the sock is so warn through, there's not much left to tie new yarn into?
posted by rebent at 6:57 AM on February 5, 2019

If only she'd posted an Ask, she'd've known to DTMFA.
posted by headnsouth at 7:12 AM on February 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

My wife and I dated when we were in college and it was a short, fragile thing because we were young and saddled with baggage that neither of us could lift for the other. We broke up clumsily with letters she wrote to me saying why she didn’t want to be around me and me protesting and not recognizing the truth of things. We both healed, got over it and then became friends. Then after years and growth and time we realized that we both had become the people that the other had always wanted. We dated long distance then moved in together, and in that unpacking we both realized that we had both kept our respective halves of those breakup letters.

We shredded them unread.
posted by bl1nk at 9:43 AM on February 5, 2019 [15 favorites]