a reaction to letting go of resolutions which was a reaction to the pressure of resolutions
In mid-December, I moved my parents into a new home for the third time in two years. My dad grew up in poverty and sees potential use in everything and my mom just likes stuff.
Even as a child, growing up in my parents’ cluttered house, I always kept my spaces tidy and organized. It became part of my identity. Additionally, my parents cared only about function, and weren’t interested in the aesthetics of items in their home. I took great pleasure in decorating my room and rearranging the furniture. I’ll add that I’m also the eldest daughter. I like to put things in their place.
As an adult, I discovered the concept of minimalism1 and was immediately drawn to it. I’ve considered myself some sort of minimalist for ten or fifteen years.
As I sorted through my parents’ boxes and boxes of books and office supplies and multiple sets of dishes and silverware and kitchen tools, I was reminded of the fact that owning things comes with using more energy to take care of them and eventually let them go, or a job for someone else to let them go. I saw the accumulation of stuff as a future task that I didn’t want myself or anyone else to have.
Even though I think of myself as minimalist and as someone who constantly declutters, when I got home and looked around my own house, I realized that with the busyness of life, I had let things pile up. I started thinking that if we had less in my own home, it would be easier to keep it all in order.
Keeping a home tidy and uncluttered isn’t that easy when you share that space with other humans. For years while my kids were very young, I resented the monotony and never-endingness of cleaning. I simply didn’t have the time or energy for the level that I preferred. My children’s attachments to their toys made it hard for me to declutter as much as I would have liked. I tried to take people’s advice to just lower my standards of cleanliness and I acknowledged that a clean house isn’t morally superior to a dirty one, but I also knew how much better I felt with a tidy environment. During that time, I had to give myself grace for how limited my capacity was for creating one.
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I have a complicated relationship with the new year. For years, I’d make resolutions (often having to do with losing weight), only to not follow through and feel bad about myself. As I began to attempt to divest from hustle and diet culture (
asks if there’s a connection between diet culture and organizing), I resisted making any goals or intentions at all. Lately I’ve begun to feel like the pendulum swung too far in that direction and I’ve settled somewhere in the middle after realizing I actually like this period of reflection. I like the pause. I like the planning, as long as it’s gentle instead of aggressive.This year-end, I’ve felt a deep urge to restore foundational order to my home. Luckily this urge aligned with a burst of energy. Knowing how rare that is for me (and that there would be a corresponding recovery period), I decided to take advantage of it, and go through as many parts of our home as I could.
That has been my main project for the last ten days. Although I’m addicted (kidding, kindof 🫣) to CleanTok, my process isn’t as aesthetically pleasing. I don’t have matching containers for everything. I’m using what I have at the moment. I’ve gone through every toy, every book, every holiday decoration, every toiletry. And there’s still much more to do. This is not a quick or easy project. It’s taken hours and hours, again something I didn’t feel I had for years. I haven’t started working on my closet yet, but I know there’s a lot of work to be done there. I’m saving that to work through along with the group in my Making Space program (see more info at the end of the post).
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I worry that by writing about this, I will make some of you feel bad that you’re not doing the same. Just know that this wasn’t possible for me for many years, and that I’m working on it because it genuinely brings me peace and (mostly) not out of any societal pressure. I’m starting to view it as self care, almost mental health care. Instead of recurring cleaning as monotonous, I’m starting to view it as ritual and habit. My mind is able to settle when there’s less clutter and things have a home. My neurodivergence craves this, but yours may make it harder for you. We all have to do what’s best for us at the time. If you’re in struggle mode, KC Davis has many resources on maintaining the minimum requirement needed to function.
Are you feeling any urge to make fresh starts right now? If not, why not? If so, what intentions are you creating?
A few resources for you:
The next round of my group program, Making Space, starts on January 17th. We’ll meet on Wednesdays at 12pm eastern for 8 weeks (except for 2/28) from 1/17/24-3/13/24.
If you feel like you were a bit too enthusiastic with your spending over the holidays, I have a free purchase pause email series. You’ll get emails every few days for three weeks to help you slow down and reevaluate your shopping habits.
For paid subscribers, here’s a 13-page closet editing workbook I created: