It’s been a long time since I posted a Kondo update, hasn’t it? Unfortunately, this isn’t really a Kondo update. It’s just a post about photos. All the photos. The problems related to trying to Kondo them. The things I’ve learned from Kondoing mine and watching other people Kondo theirs. And, about why this category was easy and hard and also the best of all the categories, for me.
When I read Marie Kondo’s book, her thoughts on storage of photos really resonated with me because I had a lot of photos in boxes and albums that nobody ever really looked at. Just thinking about the photos in the boxes made me anxious. Not because the job of going through them would be difficult but because I hated the idea that I’d been storing those photos that way for so long.
I did not want those photos in those boxes. I wanted them to be looked at or to be in a place where they could be looked at and enjoyed.
Thinking about the photo albums made me a little anxious, too, because those albums were a mess. I’d often taken out individual pages to scan, upload and share old, awesome photos. But, I never put those pages back. I also had pretty much torn apart some of those photo albums when I got divorced in an effort to be sure I was leaving photos for the big kids’ father. And, of there was also the problem that I had used photo albums that all but destroy photos. Who knew those sticky paged photo albums could be so damn sticky? ugh.
And then there was the whole issue that TW had a ton of photos in boxes, too. And her mother, OMG the photos in boxes.
Where TW and I had a couple of shoeboxes of photos, TW’s mom had large U-Haul sized boxes just full of photos. For 7 years I’ve looked at her boxes of photos and felt sick about them. Photos should not be stored in that fashion. If they’re dear to you, then they should be taken care of. They should be stored in a way that it’s easy to look through them.
So… I had a lot of feelings about photos. I also found myself with very little time or energy to deal with MY photos but I did it.
Michelle and I went through a shoebox full during Christmas break. Or maybe it was in January when she got stuck here due to the weather. Whatever, we did it and it was good. I went through the rest a few weeks later and really enjoyed the process of choosing the photos that truly brought me joy. I really enjoyed doing away with all of the duplicates and triplicates and of getting rid of all of the extra sheets of portrait studio and school package photos. Nobody needs six pages of the same studio photo. That’s just ridiculous.
The photo albums were harder, and to be honest — I didn’t finish those. I don’t want to destroy the photos that are stuck to those damn album pages so I’m going to need to do some real work to get them out. But I’m going to do that because the albums aren’t really a pleasure to look through when there are three pages of photos of the same oceanscape or six pages from a Christmas in 1986 where nobody is looking at the camera, you can’t actually tell what package anyone is opening and they all pretty much look the same. There WILL be joy when the I have albums or books that truly represent those periods of time through really good photos or interesting photos and that’s my goal.
I’m not sure what TW’s goal might be for her photos. She hasn’t really gone through them, yet. I did go through a couple of small stacks to get rid of the duplicates and triplicates but since I can’t Kondo HER photos, she’s going to have to do them when we move.
As for TW’s mom’s photos. That’s been interesting. It took her almost a month to go through them and decide which to keep and which to discard. We bought her one of those plastic archival type boxes to put the small snapshots into and we’ll get some of the bigger boxes for her to store 8x10s and 9x11s. I think she went through a bunch of them and wrote dates and names and locations on some of them — which is good because many of them belonged to the generation (or two) before here and TW didn’t have a clue as to who those people were. If they are important family archives then later generations need some sort of clues as to why those are important.
Which leads me back around to my own photos again.
I need to remember that when I’m creating my albums. If I have any inkling that these photos may mean something to my kids or my grandchildren or my great grandchildren, then I should make sure I leave them some clues, too.
AND, I’m bound and determined to make sure that we are all displaying photos in our home that really bring us joy. That’s a big goal for me for our new home. Come visit this time next year and see if I’ve done it.
Now go Kondo your photos. Get rid of the duplicates and triplicates. Don’t keep 16 pictures of the same tree (unless that tree really, really brings you joy.) Don’t keep 60 pictures from Christmas ’84 unless all of those photos truly bring you joy. Instead, create a visual archive of your life that really sparks joy — on every page of the album and in every picture frame.