Last summer, my husband and I bought what we plan to be our forever home. We sold our townhome, neatly packed up everything we own in a little moving truck, and drove across town to begin our new life on our very own farm. Within weeks, our century-old farmhouse was perfectly decorated and we were living a life out of a magazine.
Except… not. Not at all. OK, let’s be real. When we decided to sell our 1800 sq. ft. townhouse, we actually had 2 garage sales. We dropped off straight carloads of stuff at Goodwill. We packed up the things we didn’t “need” right away and hid the mountain of boxes in the garage so they’d be out of sight for prospective buyers. Clean lines, uncluttered spaces, bright windows, coordinated color schemes. And every light in the house on. Buyers want to see your home at its best, not how you actually live in it.
But wait, isn’t that how you want to live in it, too?
After completing the last of many, many trips between our former house and the new homestead, it took us months to get all of our boxes out of the new garage. Our “slow and comfortable” move-in plan became “the never-ending stream of more stuff into the house” move-in plan. More stuff even when the stuff we already had was strewn across every surface. And now? The garage looks great. It’s our house that’s a wreck and I can never stay on top of it for more than a few days. Unexpected visitors are a source of anxiety for me. ‘They’ll see what our house looks like! Our real, actual house that hasn’t been cleaned up for their eyes!’ Girl, do you hear how crazy that sounds?
It was time for a change. On January 2, I marched (OK, well I drove… OK, well my husband drove me) straight to the bookstore and purchased one book: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Japanese organizational queen Marie Kondo. I brought it home and read it within 24 hours. I know everyone says this about the book, but I’ve never felt more ready to lovingly throw all of my crap away. I’m envisioning my best life… and that life has really pretty lighting and does not include the absolutely horrendous Pinterest fail that is my “DIY Christmas ornament wreath”. Seriously you guys, it’s unforgivably ugly yet I continue to allow it live in my house.
You don’t have to read it. I’ll lay the basic KonMari philosophy out for you in this picture of a cat inside a Barbie VW bus.
Sure, there’s a lot of stuff about folding your clothes and thanking your socks and I’ll cover that a bit more in future posts, but at the end of the day that’s not really what it’s about. Being unhappy is a huge suck on your energy. Think about the last terrible job you had. You probably worked the same number of hours you worked at jobs you loved, or maybe just liked better, but dagnabbit if you weren’t exhausted by the time you got home every day. Things you don’t like do the same thing. They zap your energy and your enthusiasm and make you wander around your house looking at unpacked boxes, sighing and shrugging, then sitting down to watch 4 episodes of Law & Order: SVU (no? Just me?).
So I’m trying it on. You’ll see that a lot here, if you couldn’t tell from the title of this blog. A lady can try on way more than just clothes. I’ve already made some progress and I can’t wait to show the entire interwebs some super embarrassing pictures of my clutter and discuss what exactly “sparks joy” about my toothbrush.
Until then, eat your cereal with a fork and do your homework in the dark.
J.