clutter ... ha!

It’s hot in southern California, and my plan today was to wear a yellow sundress and red Keds and watch Call Me by Your Name because it’s that kind of day.

But I interrupted that plan to be an adult.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was going to go through all the things in my house like Marie Kondo says, for real, to get rid of clutter. I decided I was just going to follow the rules in the book without overthinking it too much. But I was scared to do the books. Really, truly scared to even consider tossing any of them.

Because books.

After I wrote that post, I spent the weekend going through my clothes, and now I’ve been living with everything very sleek and tidy. I love the way my closet and chest of drawers feel. It also feels really satisfying to have touched every item of clothing I own and decided to keep it because it “sparked joy.”

But the books.

I put sorting them off.

Oh, I pretended to work on them. Since that time, I brought every book in the house into one room and put on the floor.

I even friggin’ tapped them to wake them up.

And finally, after a few weeks of not being able to walk through that room due to the towering stacks of books, I decided to go through them this morning.

I had no distractions. No music, no audiobooks. Just me in a room. Other than a fear of getting rid of something I wanted, I was open to giving away books.

I picked each book up, individually focused on it, and felt whether it “sparked joy.”

Repeat. And repeat.

Guess how many books I got rid of?

None.

I’m laughing so hard.

Seriously none books are going to the Goodwill.

Despite following the decluttering rules for real. Absolutely real.

What happened?

I started picking my books up, one by one, and seriously, every single one gave me this rush of feeling of joy. I’ve got books written by friends, autographed to me. I’ve got books on my favorite subjects. And I tend to reread all the ones I have. True, I have a few that I haven’t read, but it’s really not that many (unlike my kindle), and even those gave me all the good feels when I picked them up and concentrated on them one by one.

So, I guess I really love books. Who knew?

Me.

This isn’t really a shocker given my dad was a publisher, my mom a teacher who collected children’s books, I learned to read before I was three, and I used to check out dozens of books from the library at once.

My fantasy living space has a library in it.

BUT…

I was still surprised. I was so geared up to actually, really toss books. When I faced those fears and went through the process, however, it was absolutely no big deal.

I also learned how much books and the written word really matter to me. I mean, I knew that, but I hadn’t felt it viscerally until this morning, as I spent time picking up every single book of mine and asking if it sparked joy.

Have you ever had an experience like this? Where you were so scared to do something and when you finally got around to doing it, it was no big deal?

And did you feel the strange relief of having faced the fear and gone past it?

Me too.