I stumbled across the Marie Kondo book in a blog one
day. I am always up for trying new things
(Whole 30, Dave Ramsey, Minimalism, anyone?).
I ordered the book on Amazon and patiently awaited its arrival.
I ended up reading the first half of the book and dove right
in. On a Wednesday night I did my
clothes. And holy shit did I have a lot
of clothes. I took them all out from
every nook and cranny of my room and threw them on my bed. It took me about 3 hours to go through,
separate, bag, and ‘fold’ all of my new clothes. In the book, you are to hold each piece of
clothing up, one by one, and ask yourself if it brings you joy. If the answer is no, you thank the article of
clothing for its time well spent, and move on to the next. Sounds super crazy, I know. I felt strange saying it out loud, so I
thanked it in my head. And folding was a
task! See, Marie has a different folding
method, one I’ve never done. It was
daunting at first, but once I put all of my clothes away, I was in awe of what
I saw. I was so happy I could see every
shirt, every pair of pants – I knew it would be so easy now to pick what I
wanted to wear.
The following week, I finished the book. I went around the house doing other
items. Books, then papers. (This is the order to follow, per the book).
Then it was the living room (which included toys) and the Kitchen. The Kitchen was by far my favorite, as this
is where I spent most of my time.
Cleaning out the junk drawer, glasses/plates/bowls, and making my
kitchen more functional. I used to shove
everything in the lower cabinets. Now everything has its own *space.
For the most part, I thought I was done. Until recently I was having issues in my
closet. My shoes were everywhere, and I
felt that I didn’t have enough storage for them. So, I re-konmari’d my shoes. The ones on the shelves were ones that I don’t
wear, and don’t bring me joy anymore. I
tossed about 15 pairs, and made room for the everyday heels, boots, and
sneakers. I then went through my shirts,
again. I realized I have a lot of shirts
that I have not even touched since I started this journey. If I don’t wear them, why do I have
them? I really had to think about this
one. Some were coaching shirts, other
gave me memories of races I did, or bring me joy when I workout. I kept the ones that brought those happy
memories.
I have not touched my boy’s clothes. Nor my husbands. Marie stats the first step is to confront
your own stuff. And sometimes I cringe
looking at my husband’s side of the room.
But getting rid of his items would not bring me joy. Maybe one day he will want to do it and I
will help.
This book has helped me appreciate
everything I have. When I get home from
work, I walk into my house, put my keys in their holder (thank the car for
getting me there safe), hang up my coat (thank it for keeping me warm), take
off my shoes (thank them for the hard work they did that day) and change my
clothes into my loungewear. I sound
nuts, right? Yeah I thought the same
thing at first when I read the book. But
now, its second nature to me. I can
thoroughly enjoy my stuff, my house, my family, because I am not knee-deep into
tidying every day.