Researching ideas for a book I had to write for someone who had compared her methodology to that of Marie Kondo, I read the blockbuster hit The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.
It didn’t just help me clarify the work project at hand. I had settled into my home and was feeling more at peace there than anywhere I’d previously lived. That inspired me to make it even better by decluttering the space and therefore my life. And I was fully drawn in by the life-altering promise that good stuff would follow.
Plus, I had a permission slip to throw away as much as I wanted.
If you haven’t read the book, the premise is really quite simple. If something doesn’t spark joy, toss it. Period. If it brings you joy, keep it.
Marie Kondo’s theory runs counter to many organizing books that don’t take joy into account, but rather suggest, if you don’t use it, toss it.
I do nothing half-assed. I read Marie Kondo’s book, then took basically two full weeks or more off work (thereby pushing retirement further out of reach). But I had to. I had to follow her direction to the letter. After all, greatness was waiting.
As directed, I started with the small-ticket items, meaning the least emotionally charged ones, like clothing. I took every single item of clothing out of my closet, including outerwear and footwear, and I piled it high on the floor in one room. Then I held a piece up and decided whether it brought me joy. If it did, I kept it. Even if I had not worn it for years. If it did not, I garbaged it, donated it, sold it, but not before I closed my eyes and thanked it for its service. That’s what Marie told me to do.
Once the burden of letting go of that one pair of jeans that I had shortened before washing (which turned them into floods) was lifted, doors would surely open. Hanging on to the torn pink T-shirt from J. Crew that I was wearing in Harlem when some guy said, “What up, Juicy Fruit?” was okay. It brought me continued joy because it made me laugh to think about. Surely leaving it rolled, not folded and stacked, in my drawer would force my dreams to come true.
And tossing that gray suit, that actually made me feel so incredibly gutted for yelling at my mom, felt downright liberating. I felt fireworks-exploding-in-my-bedroom kind of joy.
Keeping it pissed me off.
The question after it was all over: Why had I needed Marie Kondo’s permission to get rid of any of it? Same reason we use all the self-help books—I wasn’t alone. Hundreds of thousands of other people probably wanted to throw stuff out too, but felt bad about it.
And, of course, that promise—that life-altering promise that there’s more out there. And it will be better than it was before you came home every day and emptied your handbag, then thanked it for a hard day.
Most of the rest of the KonMari system got done over the weeks that followed the clothing purge. I whittled my books down, not to thirty as directed, but I got rid of a lot. (How to Put on a Fine Afternoon Tea seemed not a keeper.) There wasn’t much excess in my kitchen, but what did get pulled just got moved to clutter my basement.
Marie Kondo suggested a full clearing of all cosmetic samples. Initially, as a rule-follower, I did as I was told (not with Crème de la Mer samples, however; that’s downright against the law and if it’s not, it should be) and did a full sweep of all the travel-size shampoos and such. Looking back at my decluttering initiative, I understood her point.
Then I met Birchbox, one of the great true loves of my life. That company sends you samples every month. Before I knew it, my bathroom was joyfully recluttered with tiny squeeze bottles and mini mascaras. If Marie Kondo ever looked below my sink, she would sob. I stand behind that decision and realize that is the single shortcoming of the book that has changed sock drawers worldwide forever.
Birchbox 1 Kondo 0
But, as I dug into the stacks of photos and it became clear that I didn’t need eleven photos of a snowy mountain that I couldn’t identify, nor did I need photos of people skiing whose names I didn’t even know, I made it a point to keep a picture or two of something that at one time was amusing. Admittedly, I got slowed down on this stuff (like she said I would), taking time to photograph the old photos and upload them to Facebook and create digital clutter in my phone.
Deep in the piles, I found a stack of photos from a Halloween party I had held in Hoboken in what had to be the mid-nineties. It sparked great joy.
In the photos, I was dressed as Carmen Miranda, and the photo made clear that my costume construction looked good, but I certainly had not taken engineering into account. I recalled as I looked at the photo that that tall tower of fruit on my head was painfully heavy and I likely slipped a disk or something wearing it. The photos also reminded me of an incident from that night. Someone had invited a cousin. And that cousin brought six friends. And those friends, as I recall, were state troopers. One of them picked up lasagna with his hands, which prompted the maker of the lasagna to say, “Lasagna isn’t finger food.” It’s a bit of a blur, but, thanks to Lasagnagate, the troopers were asked to leave the party, which they did, for thirty-six seconds until the door of my tiny first-floor apartment burst back open, tables and papers at the door flying everywhere. A scuffle ensued, and it took a few people to eject the group of six—constricting costumes flying off in an effort to contain the situation. It was chaotic and stressful, but the lasagna lived and so did we.
Likely drunk, we all went on with the evening like it never happened. Those photos were keepers.
The greatest joy of Kondoing, once I had tossed most of everything I owned, was her permission slip to reorganize my remaining items as I saw fit. I liked that notion. I made myself an official sunglasses drawer at my front door because that worked for me. My clever niece, Kate, found it quite amusing when I referred to it as such. Sunglasses always fit, even when I gained five pounds. So it was a crowded drawer. Next to it I loaded a drawer with paint samples, fabric samples, and rug samples. This would probably be a weird configuration for others, but it worked for me.
And Kondo said that was okay.
The Dark Side to Marie Kondoing Your Home
To be clear, I went so far as to Kondo my freezer. And that shouldn’t be written in the past tense, because I continue to keep it that way.
Consumed by Marie Kondo best describes what happened to me after reading her book. I was able to avoid working, and basically all else, for weeks while I knocked it out which, in hindsight, was a little obsessive. I had a can’t-stop-won’t-stop mentality, which was shockingly overwhelming.
I Kondoed hard.
And, honestly, I don’t know how anyone could properly Kondo if they had to go to an office every single day.
The bigger problem, of course, was that I was left with almost nothing. I got carried away. Apparently, most everything I owned did not bring me joy. In fact, I was able to clear out fully four closets in my house. I have one in my bedroom so sparsely populated there is more empty shelf space than clothing, with about half a foot between each hanger.
Which of course made me wonder why I had settled on surrounding myself with things I didn’t like. I’m not sure exactly. Perhaps my clothes were like vegetables, not dessert. I bought them because I needed them, but never really liked them.
Dr. Ramani’s theory, when I asked her why I might have bought so much stuff I hated, was that numbing is numbing. Like food, shopping is a distraction that feeds us in the same way.
Whatever the underlying reason, much of it caused me so much struggle to zip up, I usually ended up hating it immediately.
The obvious question: Was it the clothing that I hated, or was it what I saw in the mirror?
Strangely, the Marc by Marc Jacobs five-hundred-dollar layoff bag lived to see another day. I didn’t purge that. That bag sparked joy then and to this day. And it always fit.
Having said that, a desire to wear that stupid suit, or most everything else I owned, never did re
emerge. There’s an occasional scramble to find the odd belt, and I concede that I still have some little piles of costume jewelry or accessories to Kondo, but I don’t regret tossing anything.
Sadly, I might have accidentally thrown a document in the garbage that I had saved for years. It was a letter from 1997, praising my work on a project. It had been written by a legendary journalist, and it indeed brought me great joy. A couple of years after the initial Kondo, I was having a conversation with a colleague who reminded me of it, so I went on a search to find it.
Search is the wrong word. I tore my entire house apart looking for it—to no avail. I hadn’t thrown away the certificate that says I passed driver’s education when I was sixteen. I had a full stack of emails and notes, including rejections, but not the coveted one I wanted to find. I would never have thrown it away, but, in my Kondo fury, well, it must have gotten shredded or fireplaced. Or else, someday, somewhere, I’ll find it, just like I did the title to my house after a one-week search, and the slip of paper that provided evidence that I had served jury duty for fourteen days.
Or it’s gone. And if it’s gone, I will blame Ms. Kondo. There were so many stacks and stacks of stuff, it’s not a stretch to think that a rogue slice of paper might have slipped into the wrong pile.
Another problem that emerged: Once I Kondoed, when things got un-Kondoed, I came a little unglued.
And when that happened, I found myself unable to get much done until I re-Kondoed a drawer or pile. The un-Kondoed items sparked angst, creating a vicious cycle of work and sock-rolling and handbag-stuffing, ping-ponging me between joy and stress almost weekly.
In fact, my obsession with keeping everything Kondoed grew constant and overwhelming. When my sock drawer got messed up, I got a little spun.
It’s one thing to Kondo, it’s another to maintain a full Kondo order.
Shonda Rhymes explained, in her book The Year of Yes, that she can’t sit down to write until everything else is done. I can relate. It’s so much easier to whip through the to-do list than to write. And that to-do list grows most days, rather than shrinks. Marie Kondo’s way of life became an ongoing never-ending to-do on the list, adding an extra layer of work to a day already rife with procrastination measures.
Put laundry away was an item on the list, but then it ballooned into Shit. The entire drawer is a mess.
That meant that, when I finished the laundry, I would have to pull everything out of all the drawers and reorganize them because they weren’t how they should be.
Bottom line: While she solved the physical clutter, she didn’t exactly clear out the mental clutter.
No Is an Answer, Too
The two best pieces of advice I ever received as an adult (that weren’t from my parents) came from my friend Sherri. Not a healer or a self-help guru or a shrink, rather an insightful friend.
When I was stressed out that my agent or someone didn’t call me back, or something went wrong at work and I internalized it as my fault, Sherri once said: Not everything is about you. Genius. Those words changed my life.
More critically, Sherri noticed my inability to say no to things and once said, “No is an answer, too.” Ultra. Genius. Though it took me a long time to say no as often as it needed to be said.
But saying no grew more doable for me post-Marie Kondo. Suddenly programmed to decide whether my torn leather jacket still brought me joy, I started to apply the same measure to life in general.
If it brings me joy…what an interesting concept.
Did the world open up for me once I had nothing to wear? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never be able to measure if my successes were due to my empty closets.
But, even though Marie Kondo didn’t prescribe it, I started applying the joy measure to almost everything else I did in my life, not just what I owned. I started assessing actions by how much joy they brought me. In doing so, I began to notice that I did a lot of things that I didn’t feel like doing and that caused me stress.
Perhaps some people already only did things that brought them joy. I have never been one of those people. Hurting people’s feelings is a thing I hate to do—I’m extra cautious about it, maybe because mine are easily hurt.
Since I’m sensitive, saying no is generally challenging for me, even for the seemingly innocuous situations that shouldn’t upset someone. Rarely will you hear me simply say no to a request. There will be some hemming and hawing and explaining. I’ll often say, “Well, maybe” instead. My friend Sandra said that that is Canadian for “No.”
Translation: I am easily convinced to do things I have no interest in doing. I can get backed into a plan that I don’t particularly want to participate in and frequently get stuck, unable to find a way out. A lot. Partly out of obligation and partly out of some distorted empathy, of not wanting to make someone feel bad by not participating.
My Rainbow Healer described my “yes” habit in a different way.
She said I had a fear of not being liked, based on some traumatic incidents that must have occurred in my life. Three, specifically, according to her—one each at varying stages in life, starting from when we were all young.
So I had to think about that. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood. In fact, it was anything but.
But since I was embracing the notion of healing with rainbows, I dug deep and came up with two things that stuck with me, with an apology to anyone who has suffered a truly traumatic experience in their life. By comparison, these are quite mild.
Theoretically Traumatic Situation 1: When I was three or four, my grandma (my mom’s mom, Mary) was babysitting me. Why it was just me and no siblings were around, I have no clue. Where everybody was, I have no clue. But there I was.
I was outside on a sunny spring day, playing with some neighborhood kids. At some point, the decision was made that we were all done playing. So I went into the backyard of my house, sat on the round, dark gray slate coffee-height table on the patio, and stared through the gate to the street. Not for any good reason. That’s simply where I sat, in my stretchy navy polyester pants with seams down the front of the legs.
As I stared through the gate, I suddenly noticed the kids were back out playing again, almost as if they had sent me home intentionally to shake me, and then reemerged after they’d gotten rid of me. That hurt my feelings.
What did I do? I didn’t go out and demand an answer. I did not assume they were passing back by to get to their homes. I didn’t even cry. No, I sat there and watched them play without me, but I was distraught. I pooped in my pants.
That’s not exactly how I’d handle that situation today, and I can state unequivocally that that was my one and only pants-pooping situation post-diapers. But that’s what I did.
The poop wasn’t the trauma, but the dismissal perhaps was, though I feel like there are a lot of dots to connect between me agreeing to drive someone I barely know to the train station on a sunny beach day and some kids ending a play day early when I was four. But that was as much trauma as I was consciously aware of at that stage.
Theoretically Traumatic Situation 2: There was one incident in grade eight (we say grade eight in Canada, not eighth grade, and while I’ve stopped saying “eh” anywhere but at home with my family, along with out and about, sorry, I can’t shake the grade situation) when some girlfriends all ganged up and pulled my bra off me. I wasn’t exposed or anything like that, but they pulled it from under my shirt, and, as I write this, there’s no way for me to describe why or what the circumstances surrounding it could possibly have been, but they were laughing. I felt humiliated, but I pretended I didn’t by laughing too. They were friends. We were outside, on the narrow grassy space between two houses, and I was new to boobs and bras and that was a thing worth making fun of back then, I guess. Boobs were sticky territory. I vividly remember the first girl to have big boobs; I won’t say her name, but I know it. Having them in grade six was traum
atic for her, I’m sure, and shock and awe for everyone else. For me, I recall being upset by the situation involving my boobs, but still I remained friends with these people afterward.
Enough impact on me to validate the “yes” theory? Maybe.
Theoretically Traumatic Situation 3: No clue, though I’m sure there are many that I don’t recall.
I suppose the fact that I remember both incidents so vividly gives credence to what the Rainbow Healer told me. Did that incident ignite my desperate need to be liked, like she said? Were there other situations that made me feel I needed to go out to dinner with random people I didn’t want to spend time with because I wasn’t quick enough on my feet to come up with a good excuse to get out of it?
Still, after my Marie Kondo experience, I started thinking about the joy factor and, coupling that with my “yes” habit, I realized I had a legitimate issue.
Doing favors for people took up a lot of my time. To be clear: If you need to have something done and you’re concerned everyone else will say no, just ask me. I’ll feel obligated to handle it. Your errands will come before my work or my errands.
This increasingly became an issue when I started working from home, because most people thought working from home meant I didn’t actually work. Not that I’d go to anybody’s law firm in the middle of their workday and ask them to leave to pick up my dry cleaning. But since writing wasn’t work, the favors often poured in.
So, the request to “sit at my house while a few repairmen come by” wasn’t a one-off. Letting someone else’s dog out here and there became akin to a part-time job. The pick-up or drop-off of humans or items grew overwhelming. And strange requests like, “Can you turn on my AC before I arrive so my house is cold when I get there?” while absurd, were fully executed by me. When I was in the Hamptons in the off-season, I was the de facto Hamptons superintendent.
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