I bought Marie Kondo’s tidying up book a couple of years ago and started folding t-shirts, socks and underwear according to her guidance. But a week later, I stopped. In the meantime, she has made it big on TV, and my drawers are a mess. Socks gone wild!
As I recall, Marie wants us to spend time with our stuff, folding and tucking, and thanking them for performing well. It has been quite a few years since my underwear was involved in anything involving performance excellence, unless you count bladder control.
She also encourages us to get rid of stuff that doesn’t spark joy. Honestly, none of my stuff sparks joy. It’s just stuff – stuff I either need or want, and it resides in my home. I’m careful about not having too much stuff, and I regularly toss or donate, but if I purged on the basis of joy, I’d have a mostly empty house.
But here’s the rub – I do have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and it wouldn’t be all that hard to push me off the ledge into the dark abyss of tidydom. Under my careful tutelage, records, CDs and spices are all in alphabetical order. I take my vitamins and meds in alphabetical order. A for aspirin, C for CoQ10, D for vitamin D, F for fish oil, L for Lisinopril and M for multivitamin.
Dale keeps asking what the W is for. There is no W. It’s M, and he knows it. There are days he does not spark joy, but I don’t make him leave, do I?
And yes, it’s Dale, who sort of keeps me within the boundaries of normal. He is the moral opposite of Marie. Dale doesn’t believe in the magic of tidying up. I wouldn’t call him a slob or hoarder. That’s a bit harsh. Let’s just say he’s differently organized. Mess-tolerant. Stuff-friendly.
But because we are married, and people who stay married have learned to compromise, I’ve lowered the bar and somewhat willingly sink toward his standards of cleanliness and order. It’s just too hard to fight about it. Dale makes an effort to meet me in the middle. The house is never as tidy as I would like it, but it’s not the frat house of his dreams, either.
So, I don’t know. Is Marie married or living with someone? That can’t be easy. In our 40-year marriage, we’ve found it is sometimes hard to find joy in each other, let alone each other’s stuff. We’ve reached a détente of sorts. It’s like whatever, do what you want, keep what you want. Let’s just love each other until this party is over.
Sure, we’ll have to deal with it at some point. Or the estate will. When we lived in South Carolina, the owner of an antique car museum passed away, and they were interviewing his widow on TV. The reporter asked if she was keeping the museum. She said, “No, that’s his dream, not mine.”
Dale and I still crack up about that. I joke that five minutes after his last breath, all the books about World War II will be gone. Stacks of them. Sometimes I even day dream about how I’m going to do it.
Donate? Sell online? One must be prepared.
Oh my gato! We just watched the first two episodes of her Netflix show yesterday. The second show was really great as it was a Japanese American family of hoarding.
There was just a Facebook controversy about her being quoted as saying no one should have more than 30 books. (She now claims that comment was taken out of context). One clever facebooker commented that she must mean no more than 30 books on a nightstand .
My bras never gave me joy and now I don’t have them.
My bras didn’t give me joy, either. I keep a few books by the bed, but Dale has lots. And lots on the kitchen table. When I want to get under his skin, I say, “Oh, did you know the county called?” Pause. “They want their library back.” I know, lame, but it makes us laugh every time.
Hi Donna! I haven’t read the book OR watched the show. Not that I disagree, but that I have my own version I call rightsizing. And your explanation fits right in there. Because as you say, especially when you are in a relationship it is more important to find what fits and feels “right” to you both to find your place of peace and contentment (or compromise.) Tidying up in a vacuum is easy–in real life there are sorts of adjustments that should be considered. My husband Thom is more like you. He could EASILY become obsessive/compulsive about tidy and get rid of everything in the house. I always start worrying when he starts going through his drawers because the pile on the bed means he will be giving away things that I may have to immediately go out and buy again. But he hasn’t gotten to the point of alphabetizing his vitamins just yet! I WILL NOT let him read this post to even think of that possibility. Meanwhile, rightsizing works for us because it is the perfect balance of two people living together. ~Kathy
Hi Kathy — thanks so much for stopping by. Yes, relationships drive a lot of our decisions. It’s funny how two people who love each other and have been together for a long time are so completely different. My husband will actually go out to the trash and retrieve things I’ve thrown away. With all respect to Marie, I think her philosophy is actually quite beautiful if it fits. For us, it just doesn’t fit. But go, Marie. I’m happy she is successful.
I need to do a post about my dealings with stuff lately. I have watched a few episodes of MK on Netflix and I understand starting with clothes…I cleaned out a dresser that had DH junk in it and I Kondo’d my sweaters…just how long it takes to fold each sweater got me to thinking, I would have to really like something to spend this much time folding it! Love your post.
It really did take a lot of time to fold all that stuff. The other thing was about t-shirts. I have quite a few white tees with advertising or slogans on them. Folded her way, you can’t see the writing, so it’s hard to know which t-shirt you’re grabbing, if that matters to you. A small thing, but I just fold them the old-fashioned way now.