De-cluttering - For Real This Time

tee: Cotton Basics; jeggings & sweater: Target, shoes: thrifted; necklace: The Jones Market

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a hoarder of things, especially clothes. Not to the point of being featured on one of those TLC shows or anything, but a friend/roommate did impose a ban on the purchasing of anymore hooded sweatshirts when we were in college. My day-to-day gear has changed dramatically so now it’s more a collection of too many skirts and sweaters rather than sweatshirts, but I haven’t lived with that friend in over 10 years and have been left up to my own willpower to clear out the closets. There was the great closet clean out of 2014 that happened when I was about 7 months pregnant when nesting and the need to organize everything kicked in.  I cleared a lot of clutter, but clearly my willpower needed some work.

My willpower got a bit of a pick me up recently when I one day realized that I just don’t enjoy shopping as much as I used to. Something about usually trying to do it with a baby who is not interested in it affecting the experience I think. :) A shopping trip alone used to be my time to clear my head, and having little sidekick with me most of the time prevented the trip from doing just that. It was an unhealthy habit and I’m happy to let it go.

My ah-ha moment came on our trip last month to San Francisco. I was in a store that I always love to visit when we’re out there and everything I picked up and liked I just couldn’t see the point in spending money on. My thoughts went something like this – “Those are super cute rings, and they’re only $18! But wait, I’ve really been wanting a ring with Jacob’s birthstone and if I finally found that then I’d wear that all the time instead.” “That’s a super cute black tee! $48 for a t-shirt though? Oh whatever, I wear a black tee practically every other day and I’ll get a ton of use out it. I should probably buy higher quality ones anyway.” By the way, totally bought that black shirt and it's pictured above. I'm trying not to feel bad about it. I’m a work in progress!

By this time I had seen references to Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up pop up around the internet and was a little intrigued. I picked it up and tore through it in one weekend. Some pieces of it felt a little hokey to me (touching my things to see if they sparked joy and thanking items for their service) but overall I was connecting with her ideas. Her methods include decluttering by category (such as clothes, books, papers, miscellany, and mementos) rather than by room and of course I decided to start with my clothes. I have some posts planned to talk in more detail about what parts of her methods I put to use, which few I ignored, and to update you along the way on my progress. For the next month or so I'll be sharing a post about the process and my progress on Mondays. Out of curiosity and maybe to shame myself a little, I’m keeping track of number of clothing items kept and gotten rid of. As I type this I’m not even halfway through my wardrobe and the numbers are shocking even me! Hopefully you’ll follow along and enjoy (update: I'm almost done!). I’d love the company and support!