I love organizing but I also love stuff and have a hard time with letting go of said stuff. I have to admit that I am pretty much a hoarder. A few years ago I came to the realization that I simply have too much. Too many clothes (I still have clothes from high school! It's so hard to say goodbye), too many shoes, too much stuff that is going unused. And for a long time I just kind of ignored having so much and just went about my day to day. I did curb my spending on clothes and shoes though, but honestly the clothes spending was because I wanted to lose weight so that I could wear my cute clothes that used to fit me. In 2015, I decided to try reading Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and I loved it. Still, loving something you read and then putting it into practice are two very different things. So I started the "KonMari" method by skipping some categories and starting with smaller ones such as cosmetics, toiletries, and cleaning products. I did this because they felt less overwhelming and I knew I wanted all of these items to live in our bathroom. Well, I learned that I have a crap ton of make-up! After moving some hallway shelves into the bathroom and then putting everything in one place the amount of just those items was astonishing to me. It's really true that often times we don't really know how much we really have until it's all together in one place. After that personal triumph I entered a standstill and just could not bring myself to do the category of clothes because again I was not ready to let go. So I pretty much quit. Then in 2016 I started to just get sick of having so much clutter in our apartment. I started watching minimalist/m youtube videos and wanted to get to that point where it was a combo of KonMari and minimalism. I wanted to own things that bring me joy and also have as few items as I want/need. It doesn't mean I'll be bare boning it on the furniture and will be rocking a 12 item closet any time soon. It just means that I want to pare down everything I have because having it all is making me feel overwhelmed and sick and not making me happy. I want to find that happy medium of owning stuff and not owning stuff. In December I started decluttering again and this time going through things that I'm not as attached to like textbooks, mail, bank statements, learning materials, boxes, and other paper based items. And so far, I've made a lot of headway and it's making it easier for me to get used to "letting go". In 2015 and 2016 I have also been pretty good about decreasing my clothes, shoes, and make-up spending, but my handbag spending skyrocketed in 2016 and honey, that ain't good! I would buy a designer bag and then a month or two later would start lusting after another. And I was starting to feel guilty about just the desire to add yet another bag because I wasn't like this in 2015. I tried to figure out what was driving such a strong want. I would ask myself, "Do I really want this bag?" "Why do I want it?" but what would bother me the most was that I still wanted the bag even after weeks and weeks would pass. Then a few nights ago I finished the documentary, Minimalism, and started to want that bag a little less. I'm not going to lie and say the want is completely gone but it is much less than before because I want to make room for the things that matter more like spending money on trips and experiences and having less physical stuff to worry about.
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