You can find out a lot about a person by the way they maintain their closets. Me? I am well-intentioned. I start out with neatly folded clothes. But week's end, the pile of sweaters starts to lean like the tower in Pisa. By the end of the month, I am faced with a jumble of garments. At least I try! Don't get me started on the rest of the family. They all have their, let's just say, quirks about closet maintenance.
Every once in a while, I get the urge to purge. That dresser drawer that won't close because it's stuffed to the gills, but you find yourself tolerating it way too long? The desktop filled with little papers? That basket of folded laundry that never quite made it up the stairs?
Clutter be gone!
Clutter symbolizes an unmade decision. We look at something, stuff it away or drop it on a surface somewhere and label it in our minds as ‘to be handled later'. Clutter is the physical manifestation of procrastination, items in various stages of decision-making (or not).
My husband and I have divergent views about how many things one can tolerate piled outside its appropriate enclosement. In other words, how many heaps of worn clothing that don't quite make it to the wash constitutes a national emergency?
I'd say one. He'd say, um, more than one.
One thing we agree on is what to do with errants bits of paper.
We combat paper clutter by keeping a recycling paper bin outside. Before the junk mail even enters the house, we've tossed it. Sometimes we even open our mail over a trash can.
Here's a tip for all you clutter clowns:
The change of seasons is a great time to evaluate your closet (and, with a threatening undertone, those piles of unwashed garments). As you move warmer clothes to the back and bring forth the warm weather ones, ask yourself how often you wore that neon sweater from Aunt Betty. I eliminated three bags full of old clothes that I've had since the mid-90s. It felt delicious to bless them as they went into the bag. "Thank you. You no longer serve me. Fare well and blessings to you!"
If you have a hard time letting go of things in your life, try to let go of a few physical things. Notice how liberated you feel as you open your closet to fewer things and more space. It is one simple pathway to joy...and the closet itself once you've cleared the floor to get there!
