Ok, I watched the first episode of Marie Kondo’s show, and I’ll admit it: her way of folding t-shirts and placing them upright in your drawers is actually kind of magical. You can see every shirt in the drawer without messing up the pile, and they do fit better. I’ll attach the link so you can check it out. It might be worth your time.
Where she lost me was the concept of, “Does it spark joy?” I’m sorry, I have to own things that don’t spark joy. Our toilet bowl cleaner…no joy. Our silverware and plastic cups…I can’t muster up enough Cinderella within my soul to tell you through my clenched teeth that they bring me joy. Maybe I am just slow to the party, but “sparking joy” seems like a little much.
What I can identify with is something I think to myself a lot, and it helps clear the clutter: “Do I want to own this?”
That phrase has cleared out carloads of kids toys, clothes, and things we don’t use. I don’t want to own things that get in the way or that the kids only seem to dump out.
It may sound silly, but even if we use insulated lunch boxes, I don’t want to own eight of them. I’m not sure I want to own three of them. I do know that I would love to open the closet door with the certainty that none of them are going to come falling onto my head.
I have picked up Hot Wheels endlessly, piles of them that we had randomly acquired. I decided I didn’t want to own a bucket of Hot Wheels. I wanted to own three.
The question, “Do I want to own this?” puts you in the driver’s seat of your home. I had to make the conscious choice that throwing away one hundred things was okay, even if I had to repurchase two of them. I would rather have to purchase the yellow balloons for my daughter’s birthday than live the other 364 days surrounded by stuff. By the time it’s her birthday, she will likely have moved on to purple anyway.
Create space to breathe. Only keep the things you want to own. What physically jams your home can begin to clutter your heart. Clear that stuff out.
