Today's Marie Kondo

[mme_hardy]

I got 5 bags of clothes and shoes out of the bedroom. That's tall kitchen trashbags (12 quarts), mind you. I may yet be able to reenter and use the closet.

I feel like admitting this sort of thing is admitting to being a mess and a hoarder, but progressing away from that is still progress.

I give myself triple points because this morning I had to ward off my mom's buying airplane tickets (from the dementia ward, on her computer) to make a surprise visit to my brother who'll be recovering from cancer surgery. That was a trip and a half.

Comments

[sovay]

I give myself triple points because this morning I had to ward off my mom's buying airplane tickets (from the dementia ward, on her computer) to make a surprise visit to my brother who'll be recovering from cancer surgery.

You definitely earned triple points for that. Yikes.

Congratulations on beginning to have a closet again.

[oracne]

Wow. You win at life today. Go you!!!

[nestra]

Definitely a triple word score.

[movingfinger]

Triple points AND a bingo, I think. Argh.

I feel like admitting this sort of thing is admitting to being a mess and a hoarder, but progressing away from that is still progress.

Yes, it is progress, but you have been unwell for a very long while and sorting and deciding takes a lot of mental effort and physical energy. If this is something you need to do, you will do it in its time, when you are ready.

[mme_hardy]

Thank you. I really needed to hear that.

[cupcake_goth]

This this this! Progress is progress.

(If it makes you feel any better, last year I finally tackled the Storage Room o' Doom, and discovered a closet I'd forgotten. Hidden behind a heap of petticoats and fabric. A CLOSET.)

[mme_hardy]

Heeee. (bonds)

[garpu]

Damn. That's incredible. You've been ill and you've been dealing with your mom, know what I mean?

[castiron]

With that mother-wrangling added on top of it, you would get the gold medal for throwing out one piece of garbage, let alone cleaning out five bags of clutter.

[mme_hardy]

I at long last let go of some sentimental T-shirts. It was good for me.

[ironed_orchid]

*\o/*

GO YOU!

Having finally culled 3 bags of clothes (one in rubbish, two for op-shops) and spent the last week sorting and tidying my bookshelves... I feel like I am almost ready to watch Marie Kondo without feeling wracked with guilt the whole time. Not that I think she is about making people feel bad, but that I already had so many feelings about all the stuff that needed doing that I couldn't bear to watch her show when it came out.

[mme_hardy]

I totally, totally felt that way. Then I watched it with my daughter for moral support, and she's ... she's just so nice. And sweet. And she really sincerely wants people to be happy in their own way, not in her way.

It's amazingly guilt free, and I say this as somebody who feels immensely guilty about her house.

[ironed_orchid]

I will try watching, soon.

I shall also mention that the bookshelf sorting happened in three installments, with a couple of days of thinking "I should finish that job" but not being able to muster up the energy in between each one.

[mme_hardy]

The most important thing I got from Kondo is forgiveness. Unlike other aggressively helpful methods, Kondo lets you do what you can do, when you can do it. The show explicitly calls out when it took the family six weeks to do the errands Kondo recommended.

The whole forgiving yourself for having stuff you never used, and stuff you ought to use, and stuff that deserved to be used, is so powerful.

And, yeah. If you can't do it all in one day, you can't. Not done is better than not begun.

[ironed_orchid]

Forgiveness is a good thing to get <3

[howlgirl]

I cleaned up my sewing room last winter... it was the first time I'd really cleaned, sorted, and organized it in a couple of years. I tried to stop beating myself up about ignoring it for so long, and instead focused on the fact that life was so crazy there wasn't the time.