Spring is the season of many things - Spring Break, Easter candy (Marshmallow peeps, yum!), March Madness, migratory birds, butterflies, snakes emerging from their hideouts, the countdown to summer vacay (if you're a kid), dandelions, and spring cleaning. The way that the Mom of No usually approaches spring cleaning is to talk about doing it but to not ever really get around to doing it- the idea of a sparkling clean and organized house sounds good in theory but in practice, when it comes down to a choice between cleaning out closets and hitting the trails, well- I have my priorities.
This year, however, I have become fascinated with Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. I haven't read the book or watched the TV show but I've seen some You Tube videos and I feel like I have a grasp on the general idea, which is to get rid of things that don't bring you joy- and to fold your shirts and undergarments in a way that looks neat and makes it easier to find things in your dresser. Since I get up for work at 4:45 AM and am usually fumbling around in the dark looking for my shoes, I can appreciate the idea of making your life less cluttered and easier to navigate in the dark.
My first attempt at tidying up was not at home, however; it was at work. The idea of getting rid of the items that don't bring you joy does not translate well to the cubicle farm; I quickly found out that the things that bring me joy (my snow globe collection and my coffee cup) are not the things that I need to meet the metrics of acceptable performance on my annual performance evaluation. I did, however, toss out a bunch of outdated manuals from 2009 and some floppy disks that were the height of technology back in 1991. I'm not sure what is going on with those; I thought I had gotten rid of all the floppy disks back in 2011 during a cubicle move, but maybe someone else decided to declutter his or her cubicle by leaving them in my cubicle in a late night sneaky ninja operation.
I then decided to give tidying up a whirl at home. The older I get, the more I like the idea of living an uncluttered and simple life. Sometimes I have daydreams in which I reduce my possessions down to what will fit in a Casita camper and I spend my remaining years on the planet driving from national park to national park, sitting by a campfire at night sipping hot cocoa out of my only mug while listening to barred owls asking who cooks for you, who cooks for you all.
The problem with this is that I start wondering, well, what do I do with all the other mugs that I have? Because I have a lot of mugs, and some of them (ok, most of them) have some kind of sentimental value attached to them, and they're really cute and funny, and I don't want to throw them away because that would be wasteful, but based on trips to charity thrift stores, I'm guessing that they probably don't want my mugs either because they already have quite a few, and I could try selling them at a garage sale but I'm not sure anyone would buy them because everyone else is also looking in their kitchen cabinets thinking, wow, where did I get all these mugs?
I have this same problem with almost every other object that I think about removing from my house. I decided to start with the low hanging fruit, which would be my closet, and immediately started with the "Well, this doesn't bring me joy NOW but if I LOST TEN POUNDS it would bring me joy then!" This is when the Dad of No interjected with "Yeah, but you bought that ten years ago and even if it did fit, would it be in style?". Honestly, it probably wasn't in style when I bought it. I'm not really a stylish fashion maven even on my best days.
I feel badly when I get rid of things, especially when I throw things out, because I feel like I'm being wasteful (use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without). I have no problem throwing away socks with holes in them. But Christmas-themed socks that the Grandmother of No gave me fifteen years ago? I have worn them once, and have no plans to do so again, but there is still plenty of wear in them, and who wants used socks? I have a whole list of things that I've found that I don't really need but I don't know what to do with either- old scrapbooking paper, a Sew Cute tiny sewing machine that the Grandma of No gave the College Student years ago (I think it got used once or twice), those reusable bags with drawstrings that you use like a backpack, those free little bags I used to get with cosmetics back when I wore makeup, and more. I don't need any of this stuff, but I'm not sure how to remove it from my life without feeling like I'm being wasteful, either.
If anything has come out of this faltering attempt to declutter the house, it's a renewed resolution to just not buy anything else*. If I don't buy it now, then I won't be asking myself if this object brings me joy in fifteen years because I won't own it in the first place. Maybe I can declutter my house by attrition, which seems to be a much painless way to go about it. I'll let you know how it works out and where you can watch my new You Tube videos when I master this method.
*This doesn't apply to cameras, hiking boots, outdoor equipment, consumables (bring on the Marshmallow peeps), books and field guides, replacing things that have broken, T-shirts from cool places, local bands, or with funny sayings on them, and snow globes. Now that I cleared out those old manuals, I have room for more snow globes.
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