..well firstly, from the title and my attitude hopefully there's part 2.
Hey there! I'm back from the 900 B.C into writing again but this time I'm gonna make it a little bit adventurous for you guys. So....life update: I'm 26 now, still not married, I have 14 cats and counting, contemplating about how to get my shit together, trying not to have series of mental breakdown and redoing my bedroom.
As you can read from the title, I'm starting a Marie Kondo de cluttering revolution in my house. Yes the revolution has begun like more than a month ago and still ongoing hopefully until both me and my mom are satisfied with as much storage spaces we can achieved. I haven't watched any Marie Kondo series officially but I knew her and her organizing hues from Safiya's youtube channel.
Chapter 1: Death cleaning
Basically the first area we have triggered is my grandparent's bedroom. Since my late grandpa's passing, we never actually got a chance to clear up all his stuff (death cleaning like the Swedish said) and later my grandma started showing symptoms of depression from losing my grandpa and holding on to things from their old house (which they brought to ours). Month's after we sent her to a medical treatment care home we decided that we should no longer kept things that is no longer necessary and unusable inside the house. Eliminate as much material baggage as we can to achieve a territorial zen.
Read; ini bukan kes anak dehaka, buang mak bapak etc. We gotta sent her because me and my mom, who is also a single parent are working and grandma's health is at a point where she needs constant medical care & medication for tantrums from the later developed dementia. Considering her safety and security as well. I'm not ready to open up about my grandma's story to lets just move on to the main focus here, de clutter!
Here's the outcome photos I've documented via IG story;
Late gramp's clothes and some of grandma's clothing that she'll never ever wear EVER.
It seems hard because you are de cluttering belongings that are not yours but with focus, it would be easy. It was frustrating at first when we take out all stuff that they kept inside the room but it gets better right after L-sized trash bag number 5. Yep it was a lot of junk, not clothes but junk. I wished I still have the photos of the final outcome but sadly I've de clutter it from my phone as well.
I planned to drop them off at the donation box but it was too impossible because the cavity is too small and I'm definitely not leaving the bags outside the box because of stray manure, so we kept the pile downstairs until we are finally done with both of our de cluttering adventure.
Chapter 2: De cluttering Failure
To be honest, I have a hard time of letting go of my clothes. The only sole reason is that during my baby bat year's, finding Goth clothes was so hard in my country, so any of my Goth-inspired findings are highly valued and I kept them for so long because of sentiment and hard work of finding them.
But, right after graduating and legal to activate my card's international transfer settings, I became least attached to them because psychologically I know if I let go of the outdated fash, I can always check out for new ones from international sites.
Thus, the origin story of my first de cluttering journey years ago began. My plan was de clutter and sell it off on Carousell (our version of Ebay) but it didn't turned out well as the site is already extremely saturated with thrift items and preloved is no longer a popular demand from the community. So I kept them back in the box. Problem never solved but compressed into a dark corner of a room.
Chapter 3: The Revolution
A month ago, I saw a lot of organization inspo from the internet and thought it was cool. BUT with my baggage I won't be able to commit to any of the inspo because my room is lacking of space. They are not redundant surface because I have a lot of junk I placed on them as well but I know those junks better be in the trash rather than me trashing about my hoard.
Here's my bedroom structure graphically emphasized via The Sims 3;
So here's a list of bedroom baggage I've been holding on for years due to sentiments or just in case bullshit;
- PC desk at the window
- Huge square table next to the bed
- Sentiment treasures under my bed
- Random stuff under both tables
I start off with sorting clothes from the drawer, some people might need a "maybe" pile, but I have been living with maybes my whole life so I just went for it. TO THE DUMP! Also a great and organized idea, dump all clothes into a clean bin layered with plastic and compressed as much as you can until it cannot fit anymore, later seal with tape as photo above.
Why considering this emotional roller coaster?
Because;
1) Initially you would think you haven't de clutter enough because of only completing 1 trash bag, so you would go for 2nd & 3rd bag just to make yourself feel better.
2) The idea of compressing the items actually will make you literally realized the burden you have been holding on right after you have sealed the trash bag and take it out. The more it weighs per trash bag, the more you would feel better of how much you have get rid off.
3) Optionally a rectangular bin acted as a rectangular mold for easy arrangement of your compressed junk because they look like rectangular blocks.
Next adventure is to get rid of paper junks. I've already graduated college years ago and still kept my study papers because of this just in case bull shit. The worst part was I found some exam papers from my primary education (10 y.o) and I'm now 26. Dude why the f*ck does these papers still exists?
And here's the poison in vein;
I'm the only child with divorced parents so definitely I ain't having siblings, so I became the one shot experiment kid. To be taken into account, living together with my grandma had accord where everything from my preschool until my college education were kept just in case I'm gonna need it somehow or it's a sentiment of me getting my education and my future kids would see how it was schooling during my years.
Also our generation had been thought with minimalism approach however the older generations valued more on memories, emotionalism and softheartedness where they prefer to keep everything due to appreciation and hey honestly not to blame them, during their years getting something is not easy as a single click on Amazon. Thus I theorized this generation differences had contributed a number of influence of my hoarding problem.
Note: This is just my theory which I might be wrong.
Here's a tip for you guys or maybe parents who are reading this (also refer to my rant on the right image)
- You left preschool, discard
- You left primary school / UPSR/ PSRA, discard
- You left middle school / PT3, discard
- You left high school / SPM / STPM, discard
- You graduated diploma, discard
- You graduated degree, discard
What to discard (optional)
- Exam papers
- Arts & craft stuff you did in art class
- Folios & scrapbooks
- Lecture slides
- Project paper drafts
- Notes
- Exercises, books or sheets
TRUST ME YOU ARE NEVER GONNA USE THEM.
What to sell / donate / pass it on to younger siblings
- Textbooks
- Empty folders/binders
What to keep
- Report cards
- Certificates
- Published research thesis
Proven in the right image where I manage to clear everything out from under the desk, the only documents that's worth keeping had been safely kept in my Ikea Samla bins (victoriously they only accommodate in a single bin) that I bought prior to my de clutter adventure. Prior meaning is placing them in the living room for a week as a feline battleground.
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