The KonMari Method and Why We’re Doing It

If you are friends with me on Facebook then you know my new obsession is with Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The thing is, this book came along at exactly the right time in my life.

Last year at about this time I created a timeline of things to do to prepare for our move in June of 2016. I had planned for us to begin clearing out rooms and stuff, starting in May of 2015. We have so much and we’re busy, not young, and also kind of lazy so there’s no way we could wait til next spring and get rid of things + pack + move. It just would not have worked. We need the full year to prepare.

One reason the KonMari Method is really speaking to me is that I remember what it was like to get rid of a ton of stuff in order to move here. It wasn’t fun. In fact, it was the exact opposite of fun. It was painful. It’s still kind of painful now, seven years later. We left behind things we should not have. We left behind things that brought us joy. We did that and moved to a place that we absolutely did not want to move to. We were leaving behind the big kids who weren’t moving with us. We should have brought as much joy with us as possible, and we did not. It was a hard move.

This time around, we’re moving to a place we DO want to move to but once again, we’ll be leaving kids behind. The little kids won’t be going with us. At all. They’ll be at college, or off living their lives, or doing whatever it is that grown-up kids do when they don’t live with their mommies. And, this is the last batch of kids. The last time we’ll do this. This time — that’s it. HUGE life change.

We are not going to make this move any harder than it’s already going to be. We’re going to bring as much joy into the process of moving as we can. We’re going to bring as much joy with us as possible. We can’t bring along the kids who bring us joy, but we’re sure as hell NOT bringing any “stuff” that doesn’t bring us joy. Nope. Not happening this time.

We’re moving with joy.