Last week, when I packed up my
discarded shoes to take to a charitable thrift store, I felt better. In the
guest closet I found a sack of shoes I had discarded before I
started Kondo's tidying-up process but hadn't give away yet. So I
did discard more than two pairs of shoes. Hooray for me. But now I
had to start on clothes, I'd put it off long enough and I would start at the top.
As I faced them I
decided to just do indoor tops first. Outer wear like jackets and sweaters would have to go into a subcategory, later. I know, I know.
Another deviation from the proposed method. But it was too
overwhelming to have to consider everything in one day. I know I'm
already going to have a problem because I may have to keep some
things that are not joyful, but are necessary.
I piled all my
tops, blouses, shirts on my guest room bed. Frankly, I was
embarrassed as I kept piling up more and more, from dresser drawers
and closet shelves and hangers. I who so often said I have nothing
to wear, actually had more than 100 tops, exactly 119, which included fifty-seven T shirts. It is very hard for me to discard anything and some of
these items were pretty old. But guided by the Kondo method I
managed to eliminate forty-nine of the 119 tops, or about 41%.
Here are some of the
gruesome statistics on how much I kept.
57 T shirts, kept 34
including 3 collared polo shirts, about 60%
21 Tank tops,
sleeveless shirts, kept 15, 71%
15 sleeved blouses,
kept 6, about 40%
26 long sleeved
shirts/blouse, kept 15, 58%.
I admired the pile
of discarded clothes that hopefully someone else would be able to
use. And I admired the empty spaces in my closet. The day had gone
well. I folded the kept T shirts according to Marie Kondo's method and put them,
sorted by color, in shoe boxes on the closet shelves where I used to
stack them. As she directs in the book, I hung my tops in a rising,
long to short, dark to light order, within each category, long
sleeved shirts, short sleeved, sleeveless. I sighed as I look at this
neatly filled space. How long I wondered will they stay that neat?
Hmmm.
The next morning I
started on my other sub category—jackets and sweaters. I live in the
California desert so I don't have much cold weather wear. My only
coat is an avocado green trench coat which I've had for more than twenty years and still love. It brings back memories of when I wanted to be
a foreign correspondent. It has a liner so can be worn if I ever go
anywhere that's actually cold. Cold to my desert thinned blood is
under sixty degrees.
The first item I
pulled from the new pile of clothing was a surprise--a white silk,
mandarin style jacket, heavily embroidered with colorful designs. I
thought I'd get rid of cause I hardly wear it, but I felt joyful when
I held it. So I kept it and this winter I'll make an effort to wear
it more often.
In the pockets of a
hot pink, puffy, winter jacket I found a pair of black leather gloves
I thought I'd lost. I never wear the jacket but keep it for
Chicago's 'snow' country. I put the black gloves in an
'accessory' drawer where I can keep an eye on them.
I had eighteen outerwear
items and kept fourteen, a keep rate of 78%. I discarded only 22%-- not very good. But maybe
I'm better at choosing outer wear than other articles of clothing.
I started on the sweaters. It was ninety degrees outside, supposed to go to 109 degrees and I was holding wool sweaters
in my hands. Of course, none of
them brought me joy right then, but I had to think of the future.
My first discards were two of my mother's cardigans. She's been a saint in heaven for ten years and I've worn them occasionally to feel close to her. Now I
could let them go and hope they bring joy to someone else.
For more than twenty years, I have loved a charming white sweater with pastel embroidered flowers but I had to admit it's too small to ever wear again.
When done I had discarded nine (four pull
overs, five cardigans) and kept twenty-four (seven pull overs, seventeen cardigans)
Score: discard
27%, kept 73%, again not too good.
Marie says her clients give away an average of one half (50%) to three fourths (75%) of
their clothes, so far I'm averaging 27%, 22%, 41%. I have not even
made her clients' lowest average of 50%.
Well, I still have
skirts, slacks, dresses, two piece outfits to go. And that's just the rest of the clothes category.
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