Growing up, my house was never tidy. Sometimes it was clean, but it was never tidy. And it was never kept that way. We had things stacked up in lots of random places, because my mom found it hard to let go. But every once in a while she would get frustrated at her family for also not being tidy. She would ask us to clean our rooms. She would pick up things that we had left lying around and she would say “There’s a place for everything, and everything in its place.”
I think that’s why my home feels chaotic to me sometimes. Most things have their place, but a lot of things don’t have their place, so they just get set somewhere, and then when we need them we really have to search. I don’t want to live that life anymore.
I’ve been watching, like I’m sure a lot of people have been watching, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix. It’s been amazing. I’ve been wanting to read her book for so long (let me know if you want to buy it for me) so when I saw this show I got so excited.
One thing that I heard her say in one episode is that it feels good when everything has a place. I instantly thought of my mother when I heard this.
My mother didn’t get to have a lot of innocent joy in her life. And she kept a lot of things. But I don’t think many of those things brought her joy.
I think my mother would have loved Marie Kondo, and I wish I could have seen her take Marie’s techniques into her life. I hope I can take Marie’s techniques into my life.
I’m ready for more innocent joy and less meaninglessness. I’m ready to be tidy. And I want to do it, because she couldn’t.
