Tidying Up

"Tidying up." It sounds SO genteel... But it really is more like taking giant forklifts and bashing through the house like mad things throwing away ANYTHING that is either not completely necessary, or that doesn't bring on a feeling of joy. JOY, people. Doesn't bring you joy? TOSS IT.

So. We've gotten rid of bags and bags of clothes. Learned how to fold things so that they are sitting up on their sides like this:

These are some shirts. Actually they are ALL of my short sleeve shirts that did not need to be hung up. All of them. I love clothes and I love fashion and it might seem weird that this is all that's left, but I love each piece, and my world feels so much lighter.

Why doesn't everyone fold like this? On end where you can see every piece of clothing? Why fold things in piles where only the topmost item is visible and the rest needs to be retrieved through what feels like an archeological dig?

Ok, now, check this out:

This is my family room. Just a few days ago every single shelf was shoved with crap that I would never read, nor want to even look at, again. The hundreds and hundreds of books that we removed from the shelves are being picked up by a veterans' charity on Wednesday. I needed permission to throw away books. One doesn't just throw away books, DOES ONE???

This is not supposed to be a thing. But Jack (that's my husband) and I are reading THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP by Marie Kondo, which sounds like a ridiculous claim, but so far so good. My daughter woke up this morning, came into this room, threw her arms out like Julie Andrews at the top of a mountain and proclaimed, "It feels so light in here!", which, indeed, it does! So this book gave us permission to throw away books and clothes, feeling grateful for whatever role they'd played in our lives, but enabling us to part with our STUFF. The author is Japanese, and all of this "tidying" (aka bulldozing through rooms) feels very zen and open and Japanese in feeling

Here's what's next: PAPERS. Her advice is to throw away EVERYTHING except important papers, and things that need to be dealt with right now. That's it. So we're going to have nearly everything shredded. I can already start to feel the level of relief this will bring into our lives.

Happy Spring, everyone!

XOXO

#tidying #spring #cleaning #lightness