WEEK NINETEEN: CLEANING OUT MY CLOSET (LITERALLY)

Nov 1

** This blog post was originally posted as part of a personal challenge I did in 2016 **

Have you ever done a BIG clean? I’m talking about a clean sweep, a massive purge, the kind of clean that leaves you feeling light and free of clutter.

These cleans often happen when someone moves, renovates or is forced to by some unforeseen circumstance. Other times, they are done because a need to eradicate the unnecessary sets in. This need festers into an itch that can only be scratched by eliminating anything that isn’t needed.

I have been feeling this itch for a long time.

Matt and I live in a tiny apartment together (450 square feet). Overall, we live a fairly minimalist lifestyle. Neither of us buy a lot of stuff and we’re both relatively tidy people, sometimes me less than him . For the most part, we try to make sure everything we own has purpose. Still, things accumulate. It doesn’t take a lot to fill our place up to the brim.

Gradually, the build up of stuff overwhelmed me to the point of ignoring it. I dealt with it by hiding it, using the out of sight out of mind cleaning method. I did everything from piling it up to sticking it in bags to shoving it in the closet. If I pretend it’s not there, it doesn’t exist right?

Just kidding, this doesn’t really work. I was lying to myself. It ate away at me until one day I just started cleaning and couldn’t stop. And organically week nineteen came to be.

It started with me trying to write last week’s blog post. I couldn’t focus and started going through “the bags.”

What are the bags you ask? Back at the end of November I had started a big clean but never completed it. Since then there have been bags of stuff just sitting around that I had been planning to donate or sell but had never got around doing it. And so the bags came to be.

This is where I started and one thing lead to another. Before I knew it I was spending my entire day going through every piece of clothing I had, my shoes, random stuff around the apartment and so on.

Soon enough I had over three bags to donate, an entire box of things to sell, tons of garbage and I was starting to feel a little lighter.

Now a week later, I’m still gradually working my way through everything. Right now, I am working on selling my old/ to small/ aren’t my style anymore things which has proven to be quite the process on it’s own. Next I’ll probably move onto the bathroom (I know, so exciting!…jk).

Taking on a clean sweep is often a much larger project than it seems when you start. I mean how long could going through all your stuff take? When I first started I thought MAYBE it would take me a couple hours. Man did I miss calculate! Now, I am just focused on doing it in little bursts and eventually I’ll be through it all. Then, let’s face the facts, it will probably be time to start all over again. I know…but let’s not think about that .

Even though I’m not through everything yet, the apartment is starting to feel so much better. It’s amazing the weight clutter brings and how stuff can pull you down.