I’m nearly 3/5 of the way through the KonMari method of tidying. That means I’m in the paper category.
Paper has been pretty easy, and also pretty satisfying. Some important documents have surfaced. I found my diploma from earning my Ph.D. It’s been sitting in the envelope it was sent it at the bottom of a drawer. I keep meaning to get it framed and keep putting it off. I haven’t really had anywhere to put it. My Masters degree diploma is at least in a folder-thing. But it’s stowed away as well. I’ll be keeping it, but part of me wonders why.
Too, I’ve had old copies of my divorce documents that I’ve carried around in a big, Rubbermaid file cabinet since 2010 when my divorce was finalized. I shredded them yesterday. If ever I do need them, I can request them from Duval county. And I haven’t needed them in 9 years, so what’s the likelihood I’ll need them now?
But seeing Christy Crace shredded into oblivion? Priceless. She isn’t really here anymore. Hasn’t been in a long time. I’m pretty proud of the woman she’s become, but that woman died the day the divorce was finalized. And I don’t need packets of paper to keep reminding me of those days.
Ditto with the bankruptcy papers that resulted from the divorce. I was actually going to keep those until next year (the 10-year mark of them), but I think I’m going to shred all of the supplemental stuff and just keep the discharge paperwork.
Cathartic.
Admittedly, I partially jumped ahead to the komono (i.e. miscellaneous) category a bit. In digging out papers, other stuff has been pulled out too. My apartment is really a mess right now. So I did jump ahead to the next category when I emptied those file cabinets, and now my leather for my leather working projects reside there.
Tonight I’ll bounce back and finish the paper category. This weekend I’ll tackle the komono of my craft drawers and work bench. Also the kitchen and bathroom.
Procrastination has hit me hard with this process. Often I’ll wait until evening to finally put energy into making a little more headway. This tells me that I have some mental inertia against the physical and energetic house cleaning. Being a bit messy and disorganized has served me for a long time. But Marie Kondo recommends thinking about what you want your home and life to be like after the process.
I want a home that doesn’t frustrate me with clutter. I want a home that I can rest in on the weekends, instead of feeling I need to be cleaning. I want to enjoy the belongings I have, instead of having a bunch of stuff stuck in crates somewhere. I want to enjoy a space with “adult furniture,” not the crates and whatnot left over from old college days. And, whenever I do start dating again, I’d like to have a space I have no worries about bringing someone back to. I’ll know it’s tidy, instead of thinking “Oh, I should clean first.”
I’m getting closer to those goals. I had a loose deadline of being done this week. I don’t think I’ll hit that deadline, so I’m putting a hard deadline of next week. I don’t want to drag this out all summer. After I get the heavy lifting of tidying done, I’m going to hire a cleaning company to do the nit-picky details. Have a nice fresh start to a tidy home that works better for me and supports my emotions instead of weighing me down.