Week 2 – Clothing
Last week I began the process of Kondo-ing my house. Like any good overhaul, I started with a lot of planning and goal-setting to keep in mind why I decided to do it in the first place. Marie Kondo’s “KonMari” Method of tidying has you set your own metrics for success based on your own values, lifestyle, and priorities in order to ensure that the result is something you actually want. And coming out of Week 1, I was excited to get started with the first category of items: clothes.
Week 2 Overview
Image credit: [1]
Because of our recent roof leak, we’ve had to haul storage items out of the attic into our office and guest bedroom upstairs. With those rooms packed to the gills with boxes, I had to use the living room to sort through my clothes. As I started hauling down armfuls of clothing and dumping them on the couch, Christian said “Oh, no, is this the ‘pile all the clothing’ night?” (It was.)
It took me a full hour to empty two dressers, one closet, and several rolling storage bins under the bed, plus two over-full laundry hampers… and several horizontal surfaces in the bedroom. I understand Marie’s tactic of piling everything together in one place: shock and awe… and maybe a little embarrassment. There’s no reason one person needs this many clothes, and reaching that understanding quickly and early in the game helps guide the process of letting go of whatever isn’t necessary.
Separation Anxiety
In last week’s post and other times on this blog I have mentioned my hoarding tendencies. I in no way mean to make light of people with this serious condition, which likely stems from deeper emotional issues. I have often joked about my pack-rat behaviors (I am Year of the Rat, after all), but in reading some articles on the psychology of hoarding, I certainly identify with some of the more mild descriptions, such as:
- Hoarding can be more about fear of throwing something away than about collection or saving. Thinking about discarding an item triggers anxiety in the hoarder, so she hangs on to the item to prevent angst.
- Many hoarders are perfectionists. They fear making the wrong decision about what to keep and what to throw out, so they keep everything.[2]
While there is no known cause for hoarding behaviors, it is possible that genetics, brain chemistry, and/or traumatic life events can play a role.[3] People with hoarding tendencies are often perfectionists and fear making the wrong decision about what to do with something – so they keep it and put off the decision. A study comparing the brain function of hoarders, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and “healthy” adults showed greater levels of anxiety, indecisiveness, and sadness among the hoarders when they tried to determine whether to keep or discard items from a pile of junk mail.[4]
Although I was excited to get sorting after I created my clothing pile on Day 8, I hit an emotional wall on Day 9 and then a bigger one on Day 10. I described the process as emotionally draining, which made sense after I came to this realization: I have never, to my knowledge, parted with my clothing as long as it was still functional. The only times in my life I have ever willingly, knowingly, and reluctantly retired any clothing items were when they were falling apart so badly that they could no longer serve their intended purpose… and at that point, I saved them to use as rags.
The Culling
I hate clothes shopping, so I don’t acquire much, but since I never get rid of anything, my collection has slowly built up over time. I had a moment of clarity when I pulled a shirt out of my mountain of clothes and reminisced to Christian that I wore it all the time… in middle school. It still fits, I still love it, and it landed in the “keep” pile, but this tidbit should give you some idea of how difficult it was for me to cull anything at all.
By Day 10 (only two nights into sorting), I was in a bad place emotionally. I felt very depressed getting rid of clothes that had been with me for decades and very guilty getting rid of clothes that friends and family members had given to me. They were all legitimately useful garments, and I was only able to fill a small paper bag with all of the items that were too worn to donate. Simultaneously, I felt like it was a waste of my time that I wasn’t getting rid of more. All in all, I filled seven paper grocery bags with clothes to donate (one of which was designer labels, headed for ThredUp),[5] one with shoes to donate, and one bag each of ratty clothes and shoes to recycle. If I had to guess, I probably parted with about one quarter to one third of my closet.
Thankfully I have a small number of shoes for someone of my gender and an even smaller number of purses. Sorting through the shoes was not easy, but it was not nearly as difficult or as anxiety-inducing as the clothing. Most of my energy was spent in the first half of the week, and I didn’t think I could hold up much longer. I wondered how I would manage on the more difficult categories in the weeks to come. (By the way, Marie starts with clothing because it’s the “easiest.”)
The Sorting
I was very far behind on what needed to get done in Marie’s schedule. It took me two days, not one, to get through all of my “tops and bottoms, dresses, pajamas, jackets” from Day 10, and significantly more than my goal of only one hour each day. By the time I “joy checked” everything else in the mountain, I only had one more day in the week to fold, sort, and store everything I had decided to keep.
Marie recommends storing your clothing standing up in the drawers so you can see everything in there. When you stack clothing, you can’t see all of your options, and the rarely-worn clothing slowly makes its way to the bottom where it is forgotten. Her signature “KonMari” fold enables each item to sit upright, so you always know what you’ve got. After filling almost two dressers this way, I believe it is more space efficient too.
The folding process isn’t too novel if you’ve lived in Japan. It’s reminiscent of how I used to fold my kimono and the hakama (pants) I wore for aikido practice. However, the one extra thing she recommends you do as you fold is thank each piece clothing for supporting you throughout the day.
I cannot convey just how much I hate folding laundry. I would rather do anything else than fold laundry, which is why I have often left piles of clean, unfolded laundry on the couch for months at a time. However, as I spent seven hours folding each piece of clothing I own on Day 14 of this challenge, I was exhausted but also full of gratitude thinking about how much I loved each item: how comfortable it felt, how it made me look, where I got it, or who gave it to me.
Next Steps
For the first time, possibly in my life, I have enough room for all of my clothes. The storage bins under the bed and my laundry baskets are empty. I’m using half as much space in my closet, and my two dressers are no longer completely full. I’m curious to see how long I can keep this up now that there is actually a place for everything, and since folding laundry seems a little more bearable when I practice gratitude.
The 10 bags in my living room will be making their way to the appropriate next locations soon. Fortunately a link I cited in my recent Cotton Anniversary post [6] gave me a list of recycling options for bras, shoes, and cloth. Meanwhile, some friends recommended a great independent thrift store in the North Hills called Repurposed.[7] I am sad to part with some of these clothes, but I’m also in awe of how my bedroom looks without piles of clothes overflowing from laundry baskets onto the floor and nearby dressers. And, of course, I’m glad to know these items are going to people who need them more than I do.
Hopefully this thrill of accomplishment will carry me through next week as I sort through my books. (Spoiler alert: they all spark joy.)
Thanks for reading!
[1] https://konmari.com/konmari-marie-kondo-tidy-challenge-week-two/
[2] https://psychcentral.com/lib/10-things-you-should-know-about-compulsive-hoarding
[3] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hoarding-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356056
[4] https://www.livescience.com/22140-hoarders-brain-why-they-cant-ditch-stuff.html
[5] https://www.thredup.com/cleanout/sell
[6] https://radicalmoderate.online/cotton-and-its-impacts/
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