I’m No Marie Kondo

On the spectrum from Hoarder to Minimalist, let’s just say that Marie Kondo and I are not soul mates. Not. Even. Close. Now, I’m not on the verge of being featured on a reality show and I don’t need an intervention. But I do have a lot of stuff. A lot. More than most people. But it’s good stuff. I don’t have precarious piles of decades-old junk mail or garbage. I don’t save every plastic bag or newspaper. And there are no small pets or children buried under a deluge of flotsam and jetsam.

I just collect . . . well, collectibles. And I have a hard time culling out the still-good-but-old stuff — the clothes, the shoes, and the books, oh the books. I’m the type who did not sell my college texts back to the bookstore to finance the next semesters books. I still have VHS cassette tapes and DVDs because I still have a VCR (or three) and a few DVD players. And I quilt, and every quilter is a fabric hoarder. Not to mention the yarn for knitting. George Carlin really spoke to me in his comedy routine (Google “George Carlin Stuff” — it’s hilarious, mostly because it is so true). Basically, he said, in his histrionic awe-struck manner, that a house is just a place to store our stuff. Well . . . yeah.

You get the picture. I have a lot of stuff. And I love my stuff. No, I don’t use it all every day. Yes, I have clothes in my closet that I have not worn for over a year (or more), but I don’t want to get rid of them. Yes, I have found clothes in the back of the wardrobe I’d forgotten I had. But, I just don’t buy into the ideology that my stuff is ruining my life and causing depression and holding me back.

The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life. — Marie Kondo

Marie Kondo’s litmus test is touching an object and asking yourself if it brings you joy. If it doesn’t, you’re supposed to politely thank it for its service in your life (this is akin to closure) and promptly let it go. This is the great divide. This is supposed to be the tipping point. You are supposed to let go of a lot of stuff with this technique and be left with a decluttered house of only things that bring you joy. The thing is, even with clothes I haven’t worn in a year and stuff that is in my storage closet, the answer is a resounding yes, it does bring me joy. I simply and genuinely like my stuff. And, as much as others might tsk-tsk at my excess of possessions, who do they all come running to when they need that special thing that they never thought they would need — that cable, that book, that size knitting needle, that pair of aqua blue socks — yep that would be me. And I usually have it.

All that said, I am preparing to move . . . again. I would rather stick pins in my eyes. Moving is my single most hated human endeavor. Admittedly, I hate to move because I have so much stuff. And each time I relocate, the stuff I have to move has increased geometrically. This move promises to be epic.

Moving is an incredibly labor-and-time intensive task for me. And hard — physically and emotionally hard. I simply do not understand how people can move out of a house in a day or two. It literally takes me months. I have the luxury of planning this move (which I sincerely hope is my last) over about 18 months, so I can attack it in a very methodical and organized manner, and of course, declutter in the process. And you can’t utter the word declutter these days without conjuring up guru Marie and her viral technique.

I’ve already started. I have thrown out several loads of the good-enough-to-keep-when-you-have-a-big-house-and-space-to-store-it but not-good-enough-to-haul-it-to-the-next-place stuff. The broken-but-someday-I’ll-fix-it (not!) stuff. The maybe-someday-I’ll-fit-into-five-sizes-smaller stuff. That’s the easy stuff. That’s the first cull. The no-brainer decluttering. I’ve done that. I’m about to enter phase two, and it’s getting real.

Despite my tendency to hang on to things, I am finding the culling a positive experience. It is a good feeling to clear out some space and to get rid of things that you really don’t want and will never again have a use for. It’s great to take inventory, to reassess.

But let me be perfectly clear here — Marie would not be proud. She would not be impressed with what I am tossing out of my life. She would be horrified at all I am still keeping. She would smugly insist that I still had a long way to go. Maybe I do. But I am reassessing everything I own. I am decluttering to the extent that I feel comfortable.

And maybe I’m moving just a little closer to Marie on that spectrum.