I have been hearing things about a book called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. I haven't bought it yet but have read about it and watched a women on Youtube trying to implement it.
Marie Kondo is an expert in tidying and helps her clients to declutter their lives by getting them to get rid of anything that does not bring them 'joy'.
I am a hoarder. I am not a terrible hoarder like you see on the TV where the Council have to come round and have a chat whilst standing knee deep in goodness knows what in the hallway. But I have kept things that I don't need. Mainly I have kept things from my childhood. I have moved a lot in my life although this has stopped since having the children. But in every move I have taken with me items that I could do without. Toys and books mainly but also a mouse pincushion!
How have these things survived these moves? When you lose so much stuff along the way how come a pincushion has survived? How come the Mother Goose book (at the top of the page) survived? I don't read it. I didn't even remember I had it until the other day when I decided to implement the Marie Kondo system on my book collection, and there it was. As soon as I saw it I had a reaction. An emotional reaction. I took it down from the shelf and started to look at it. You see it was a personalised book with my name and the names of friends and family and places inserted into the story along the way to make it seem like a book about me. And this was why the book had survived. It was imbued with a strong sense of nostalgia, I felt like I couldn't throw it away because it had been created for me, it was about me.
Except it didn't bring me joy. I realised when I was looking at it that it made me feel sad. I understood what Marie Kondo's book was all about. She says that after implementing her method many of her clients go on to make other great changes in their lives - they start businesses, they divorce their husbands, they make a fresh start. The reason being that they now have the headspace to do these things once all the clutter has gone. Because most of the clutter is emotional baggage just hanging around and you cart it from house to house and wonder why you can't move on.
So the book had to go.
The first three pages were very sad and the tears came.
But then there was relief. And it felt good.
Two large bags of books have now gone to the Charity shop and I know I will never miss them. I just feel lighter and more positive.
But what about the mouse?
Well he gets to stay :)
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