‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying’
On Sunday, I KonMaried my wardrobe. I pulled out every piece of clothing I own, placed them on my bed and then, one by one, picked them up and asked myself if it ‘sparked joy’ in me.
Turns out, a lot of items sparked joy in me.
The knitted navy and cream cardigan sparked joy, the old maroon hoodie from Aldi sparked joy, the A-Line dress made out of upholstery material sparked joy, the old grey cardy I stole from my 82-year-old mother sparked joy.
Most of the time I was thinking, ‘Gee whiz, if I could actually fit into that dress again, it would bloody spark a lot of joy in me, Marie Kondo‘.
I found it very hard to let go of things and move them from the ‘keep’ pile to the ‘donate’ pile. To give you an idea of my hardship, here is a little snapshot of one of the conversations I had with TSH:
‘Should I keep this dress? I got it from an op-shop in Paris, doesn’t fit me for sure….’
The dress I haven’t worn since last century, but decided to keep.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in it’.
Back up there, wait, what? We’ve been together for nigh on 14 years and he’s never seen it on me? That means it’s highly likely I haven’t worn it since last century. Shipped it from Sydney to Stockholm, 15 years later, Stockholm to Sydney and I still haven’t worn it.
‘You’re right, I’d better keep it’.
He agreed.
Struggle street. What to keep? What to toss? With so much joy around, it was very hard.
Somewhere around the 4-hour mark however, I did start to feel less joy and managed to fill up 5 black garbage bags.
TSH fared much better, I must say. Unprompted and with no discussions around whether to toss out clothes he hadn’t worn in over a decade, he KonMaried his wardrobe like a master.
Out with this, out with that. Out with more and more. At one stage, I thought he may be planning to embrace his Swedish-ness and just go about naked.
There was so much glee and abandonment, I was forced to say, ‘you do understand, that the whole idea of this is that you toss out all your clothes, and not replace them’. He claims he understands.
Obviously, he is further along his ‘journey’ than I am.
loulouloves 
I enjoy when my husband removes one plaid shirt from his closet, tells me at length why it’s worn out/not in style/just not worn anymore, and then a nearly identical plaid shirt shows up in the mail the next week and goes in the closet.
HA!!!!! TSH is a fan of plaid too.
I can actually be pretty callous when I need to be. Each time I move I go through stuff and ditch things. When I made my seachange I sold a heap of clothes that I’d worn for work and would no longer fit me (or suit my lifestyle). Thankfully I’ve kept a few things which I might need from time to time!