It may be just a little early for Halloween, but for a lot of us, we’ve been creating graveyards in our own homes right under our noses. This sounds more macabre than it’s meant to, so let me explain. I’m referring to our social mentality crossing over to our wardrobe hygiene. More specifically I’m talking about ghosting.

The bulk of our social interactions now exist primarily through digital means, via Instagram, Snap, Twitter, Tik Tok, and of you’re stuck in the Stone Age and/or enjoy arguing politics with extended family members and people you attended high school with, Facebook. Due to the fact that we allow our avatars to do our socializing for us, we are also provided the option of letting them do our dirty work for us too. Don’t feel like talking to the weird guy at the bar you accidentally gave your IG handle to when you thought he was gay, only to find out later he’s just a creepy effeminate dude who now has access to your digital past? Ghost! Friend from the past who you wish would stay there—ghost! Irritating coworker who did a deep dive on your Insta and starting liking your post from 3 years ago around midnight last night—Beetlejuice!Beetlejuice!Beetlejuice! I mean, ghost! Anyhow, I think you get the point.

We encounter something that makes us uncomfortable, or a situation we don’t know how to deal with and our first inclination is to ignore it and hope that it goes away. It’s a passive way of not dealing with a problem we don’t know how to solve. We do it to people, jobs and the clothes in our closets. Ghosting our garments may seem far less monstrous than doing it to humans, but I think it’s just as damaging to our psychic energy. We leave pieces from the past with history clinging to them just hanging right next to our favorite jumpsuits and jackets. We can’t bear the thought of getting rid of the dress we wore for our birthday 6 years ago, but we don’t want to wear it, so we just see through it to the next article of clothing.

As as if it weren’t bad enough to shame our elder garments by passing them over time after time, we do it to the brand-new-with-tags pieces too. It’s the gown we saved $300 on so we had to buy it even though we had nowhere to wear it. It’s the gold metallic designer vest that’s proven to be not quite right with anything you’ve tried to pair it with, so it sits alone on the bleachers while you dance around in the same neutral cargo vest because it’s so easy to wear. It’s true, what they say, the prettiest girls stay single because they’re too intimidating. Well, your exquisite gowns and embellished finery are lonely too, and they’re wasting their young years collecting dust in your wardrobe. Shame on you. They deserve better.

So, what do you do? What are your choices? Well, you can always make the decision to cut your losses and consign your lonely items. You’ll reap a small financial reward, space in your home and some solace knowing that hopefully your old things will go on to have a nice new life. If none of that appeals to you then it’s time you face your own mortality as well as the shelf life of your apparel. It’s now or never. You can sever a tag or sever the relationship with your threads. Either way, save the ghosts for Hallows’ Eve, and keep them out of your closet.