In my last post I casually admitted to everyone that I’m suffering from #dragonsickness.
Really it’s just me realizing that I have hoarded tooo much crap, it’s a mess to move with it all, and if I’m going to embrace the semi gypsy life I need to condense my hoard.
Here’s where KonMari comes in.
The KonMari method is a method of tidying created and perfected by Marie Kondo that boils down to one basic concept. Only keep what brings you a spark of joy.
That’s right, you now have permission to throw away and donate all the things that don’t give you a spark of joy when you hold them in your hands.
Which is something I thought I had done during this past move.
But I know I’m wrong.
I know there are things I kept because I ‘need’ them, but I believe this need stems from an emotional place versus a factual place. Thus the dragon sickness.
Marie Kondo’s method of tidying and subsequent organizing is basically a way to battle dragon sickness.
In order to win this battle Kondo breaks down her tidy into categories. These categories ensure that nothing is missed because, she found, when you tidy by room you tend to tidy the same things over and over and the elimination of excess is reduced significantly.
The first category, and my light bulb category, is clothes.
A couple of years ago I started hoarding vintage clothes that I would wear when I ‘lost the weight.’ This era of ‘lost the weight’ has remained illusive for the past, I don’t know forever? Just kidding. I know this started about 5 years ago and carried on for 2-3 years. I stopped after I moved to Chicago, so actually if I do the math it might be 4 years.
Anyway! The point is I bought clothes that are to small for me and I have no real idea what size they are because vintage clothes come without vintage tags. So this idea that I had 5 years ago, that I would buy smaller clothes and they would help me stay excited about losing weight, turned into this body dysmorphic lie where I dreamt about ‘lost the weight’ land but fully believed I would never get there. I was easing on down the road into denial and I have been walking that road for 5 ish years. Then I read Kondo’s book and realized those clothes don’t spark joy, they spark years of suppressed pain. They are part of my dragon sickness, they are part of my self loathing, they are part of my fat shaming, and they don’t deserve to stick around.
Although there is one dress that is super cute and I really want to fit into it so I’m making my thin friend try it on to see just how small it is, it sparks joy so depending on how small it is I will either keep it or donate it. Because honestly, with the size of my boobs, I will just never be a small or possibly a medium, but I am shooting for medium as my end goal.
After clothes comes books aka Rachel’s most emotional category, because all my books spark joy and I’m going to really REALLY have to follow her guidelines when getting rid of them, but I don’t want to just throw them out or donate them to strangers, so I would like to ask now: would anyone be interested in a care package of books from my personal library? These books are NOT books I hate but books that I know I will not read again because I have read them, experienced them, and now move on from them while holding them close to my heart forever. Or at least that is what I will be repeating as I hold each book in my hands and attempt to let it go.
I will also be doing this tidy again once I am back on the east coast because I left TON of stuff at my parents’ house and Kondo basically had an entire section chastising people for not having the guts to throw something away and instead giving it to their parents. So what I’m saying is, there will be further rounds of book care packages if you want a book care package.
You might be thinking, “wait isn’t giving us your books the same as giving them to your parents?”
……Noooo……?
The rest of the categories don’t worry me as much. There are things that won’t spark joy but that I obviously have to keep, like important documents, birth certificate, 6 months of pay slips so you can prove you have a job in order to rent an apartment, you know, stuff that doesn’t spark joy but is still important to your life. Kondo addresses these documents briefly in a, they don’t spark joy but keep them all in a file together, kind of way.
The only other category I’m worried about is mementos because, with some of them, I know I keep them because I feel guilty throwing them out. Kondo insists on only keeping those things that spark joy not guilt. The guilt apparently doesn’t help your relationship or something with the other person and it’s okay to experience the memento/gift and then get rid of it. So I’m gonna do my best at that…of course this category is at the end so theoretically it will be easier to go through the mementos and get rid of them…
She also has a firm rule that if you miss something in a category and only find it after the joy-tidy (my phrase not her’s), you must throw it away. After all, if you didn’t find it in the first place it probably doesn’t meet the joy requirement.
Since Friday is my day off I decided to ride the emotional rollercoaster/fight the battle against dragon sickness this Friday. I will let you know how it goes.
Let the Battle of KonMari commence!
Rachel Sommons Knows Nothing 