14

CLEARING SPACE

Every single piece of clothing I owned was strewn across my lounge-room floor. Every handbag, every scarf, every pair of shoes. It looked as if my apartment had vomited up a garage sale. I tiptoed through the debris and marvelled at the geometry. How had it all fit? I live alone in a one-bedroom apartment and yet somehow I’d been hoarding enough clothing to kit out an army. A petite Japanese woman with a sweet smile had brought me here — Marie Kondo, queen of decluttering. I was starting to wish I’d never read her stupid book.

I usually avoid fads. Any author, fitness freak, or self-help guru described as having a ‘cult-like following’ is one I do my best to ignore. I’ve never tried ‘clean eating’ or been persuaded by Pete Evans’ paleo diet crusade. I’m yet to read Fifty Shades of Grey, and I’d rather be incarcerated in a tiny room with no windows, being barked at all day by prison wardens, than sign up to Michelle Bridges’ 12-week body transformation (although I suspect there may not be a lot to separate the two experiences).

And yet something drew me to the Kondo fad. As I grew stronger and unpacked my life with Veronica in therapy, there was a growing sense of wanting to offload not only my spiritual baggage but also the excess debris that filled my home. Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has sold more than three million copies and been translated into 30 languages. A self-made ‘cleaning consultant’ and ‘tidiness guru’, she has turned her passion for decluttering into a global business. The runaway success of her book forms part of a wider trend that has seen people all over the world downsize their lives as an antidote to the rampant march of consumerism. With environmental catastrophe and materialistic excess at the forefront of our collective consciousness, minimalism has become the Western world’s hottest social craze. On Buy Nothing Day participants are encouraged to reflect on the impact of overconsumption by buying nothing for 24 hours. Others are going one step further and purging their homes, getting rid of surplus clothes and other material possessions, and even selling up and moving into smaller, more environmentally sustainable properties.

Leading the charge are Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, who started the blog The Minimalists in 2010, as they approached 30 and realised that their six-figure corporate jobs and luxury lifestyles were not making them happy. ‘There was a gaping void, and working 70–80 hours a week just to buy more stuff didn’t fill it: it only brought more debt, stress, anxiety, fear, loneliness, guilt, overwhelm and depression,’ they wrote. The pair quit the corporate rat-race, published their first book, Minimalism: live a meaningful life, and now have a global audience of more than 20 million people. They made a hit documentary and tour the world spreading their ‘less is more’ message. Minimalism, as they describe it, is a ‘tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favour of focusing on what’s important — so you can find happiness, fulfilment and freedom’. Their homes have been stripped back to the bare essentials; just a handful of clothes hang in their closets. Fields Millburn took inventory of every possession he owned and found he had 288 items. The average American household has more than 300,000.

I didn’t imagine I would end up with an apartment as sparse as his, but I was definitely starting to feel burdened by the clutter in my life. The cupboard in my hallway — a cavernous space that I used to be able to walk into — had become so crammed with crap that when I opened the sliding doors the contents burst out at me like the parasitic beast in the Alien movies. I had no idea what was in there anymore. My wardrobes were overflowing with clothes, and every drawer, shelf, and corner was jam-packed with trinkets and random detritus. On the surface, I was pretty neat. But open a door or a drawer and the truth revealed itself.

I started Kondo’s book and raced through it in an afternoon.

Using her KonMari Method, she promises to revolutionise your life with an emotionally aware approach that means you tidy by choosing what you want to keep, not what needs to go. Her number-one rule is the items you keep must ‘spark joy’. I borrowed the book from Nonie, who had recently KonMari-ed her bedroom and was loving her newfound minimalist lifestyle. But she is by nature an ordered and tidy person, so I wasn’t sure the method would have the same effect on me, with my propensity for hoarding. And I just couldn’t imagine how my sweaty gym socks were ever going to spark joy. But I imagined the sense of lightness I’d feel by shedding the stuff that no longer served me, and couldn’t wait to get started.

Now that I was standing in the detritus of my exploded apartment, I was wishing I’d never begun.

Kondo insists that you must not take a room-by-room or little-by-little approach. You tidy by category. And you go at it in one massive cull. She recommends clothing first. The secret to success is gathering clothing from every cupboard, drawer, and hook in the house. Then you pile them all in one spot, divided by sub-category: tops, bottoms, jackets, socks, underwear, and so on. But one wardrobe in and I was already feeling the weight. I was crushed by a sense of shame and Western guilt. At one point I stood in a mountain of tops and dresses that reached nearly to my knees and screamed, ‘THIS IS APPALLING!’ I felt like I was personally responsible for the global sweatshop trade.

Kondo writes that if something brought you joy in the past but no longer serves that purpose, you should thank it for the memory, for its service, and let it go: ‘By handling each sentimental item and deciding what to discard, you process your past.’

I was sceptical. This is the same woman who says that decluttering your home can make you richer and more beautiful and even act as a detox, leading to spontaneous bouts of diarrhoea. One hour in and I was yet to find fortune or get the runs, but slowly, something began to happen. As I felt each piece of clothing, I was flooded with memories. I picked up a delicate black-lace dress. How I loved this when I bought it ten years ago. I hadn’t worn it in years, but I’d been unable to get rid of it. My eyes travelled down the neat pleats in the skirt and across the fine detail of the neckline. I slipped it on and remembered wearing it to my thirtieth birthday party. It was one of the last happy memories I have of being with my former partner. I took a deep breath and placed it in the discard pile.

There was one dress I loved so much I held it up and thought, How can I throw this out? But I couldn’t fit into it. When I last wore it, I was tiny. And I was tiny because I was so anxious I wasn’t eating. As I ran the fabric through my fingers, it wasn’t joy that I felt; it was deep sadness. So it went.

Each pile gave way to questionable justifications. I found myself wanting to keep things because they were expensive. I was checking the label rather than checking for joy. Did I really want this G-string simply because Elle Macpherson’s name was on it, even though it looked like it would fit a pre-schooler and cut into my arsecrack like razor wire? Bin. Was I actually going to keep these boots that had been stuffed under my bed for five years because I told myself I would get round to re-heeling them one day? Bin.

Four hours in and I was exhausted. And then, just as I felt like throwing in the towel, there it was. Twisted up into a ball inside a jumble of black stockings and leggings: my favourite black top, which I hadn’t seen for more than a year. With its soft cotton finish and flattering neckline, it matched everything, and I loved wearing it. But one day it had just disappeared. I turned it over in my hands, wondering at its beauty like an archaeologist excavating a lost relic. I thanked it for returning and promised to appreciate it more.

By the end, I had ten full bin bags of clothes, shoes, and accessories. Then I began the process of putting everything back. I turned to the chapter Kondo entitles ‘Storing Your Things to Make Your Life Shine’. She says that every item must be designated a home. Without everything having its allocated space, you increase the chances of your home becoming cluttered again, or accumulating stuff you don’t need. She describes how every time she unlocks her front door she announces to her house, ‘I’m home,’ before taking off her shoes, thanking them for their hard work, and putting them in their rightful place in the shoe cupboard. She also empties the entire contents of her handbag, removing all receipts and putting her wallet in a designated box in a drawer under the bed, next to her train pass and business-card holder. Her wristwatch, jewellery, and empty handbag also receive her thanks before being stashed. I already had one-sided conversations with my cat. I didn’t need to start talking to my accessories. But I did like the idea of effective storage that might make my life more efficient.

Slowly, it started to come together. I followed her KonMari folding method and organised my clothes standing up on their side, in a way that allowed me to actually see what I owned every time I opened a drawer. I started with my underwear, and when it was finished I felt genuine joy at seeing those little packets of colour-coordinated neatness in clean rows. My dresses were no longer packed in so tightly nothing could move. They could breathe. When I looked at my wardrobe, I flicked through the wooden hangers as if I were picking out items in a clothing store. And everything I saw was something I wanted to wear. The more progress I made, the more excited I became at this newfound order. At one point I clapped my hands like an overstimulated child and shouted, ‘WHO EVEN AM I???’

By the time I was done it was 11.20 pm and I’d been going for 12 hours. My Fitbit told me I had walked 27,060 steps — 18.44 kilometres — without leaving my apartment. My legs were stiff. My back ached from all the bending and folding and trying things on. My fingernails were thick with grime. I was sneezing and wheezing from all the dust. But I lay in bed smiling, knowing I’d completed a task that seemed impossible.

A fortnight later, after enjoying the newfound order of my wardrobe, I committed to starting on the rest of the apartment. It took a full week. I deviated from Kondo’s rules and tackled things by location, not category. First up, the hallway cupboard. This was a monster. Things were piled high, floor to ceiling — boxes, appliances, bags, brooms, mops, a set of plastic drawers, more boxes. Anything I didn’t know what to do with had been thrown into this abyss. It had inhaled the surplus debris of my life. I started pulling things out. Good God, there was some crap. I found a small television, a printer with no cables, three laptops (one that was so heavy it was like a relic from the land time forgot), two rugs, offcuts of carpet, plastic bags, canvas bags, Ikea bags, a backpack stuffed with sweaty boxing gloves, picture frames, coat hangers, two hairy pet beds that my fickle cat slept in twice then rejected, several ugly blankets, a magazine rack, paint pots and congealed brushes, and three boxes and two expandable file folders crammed with bank statements and utility bills dating back to 2003. What was I planning to do with them? It kept coming. Warranties for appliances I no longer owned; a wicker basket full of leads, adaptors, and cables that must have connected to something, but I had no way of knowing what; several packets of square floppy disks; an old rice cooker, which, when presented to me as a Christmas present by my former partner, caused a festive meltdown that nearly ended the relationship; more boxes. So. Much. Stuff.

When I looked at the evidence of my mass spending orgy, I realised it had not brought fulfilment. Each purchase may have engendered a burst of happiness, but the satisfaction was temporary. And yet, for so long I had continued chasing the notion that contentment was just one more acquisition or milestone away. My friend and Age colleague Cam, a hard-nosed investigative crime reporter known for his dry wit and laconic take on life’s twists and turns, offered me a piece of wisdom some years ago that sums it up: ‘Starkers, nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.’ It was classic Cam, by turns pragmatic and hopeful. And he was spot on. When I think back to the stuff that I thought would bring me my happy-ever-after — the success of a debut book and the recognition of my professional worth — I can see that those milestones weren’t what they seemed, at least not in the context of the value I’d placed on them. And then, when I was struggling to keep my head above water after it all fell apart, I found a way to stay afloat. It was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. As humans, we have a capacity to adapt to our environment and the circumstances life hurls at us.

This is the theory of the ‘happiness set point’, which posits that whatever is happening in our external world, we all have a base level of happiness. It’s the emotional status we return to no matter how terrible or wonderful life becomes. The concept came from a 1978 study which found that lottery winners were not significantly happier than those in a control group, while conversely, people with spinal-cord injuries were much happier than might have been expected. We quickly adapt to these life-changing events and return to the level of happiness hardwired into our DNA. It goes some way to explaining why so many rich people are miserable. Once you get that mansion and discover you’re not fulfilled, you have to buy the yacht. When that doesn’t do it, you need a jet, then an island, then a luxury hotel chain, a network of golf courses, your own global beauty pageant, and before you know it you’re the leader of the free world and even that’s not enough so you have to antagonise North Korea, ban the press corps from the White House, and create fake wrestling videos so you can punch a television station in the face.

This ability to return to a set point of happiness no matter what positive or negative events occur is also known as hedonic adaptation or the hedonic treadmill. We have to constantly keep moving towards the thing we think will bring us satisfaction. But the more we strive, the further from reach the goal becomes. When mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest gave $400 million of his personal fortune to cancer research and various other charities, it became the single biggest private donation in Australian history. He said he’d lived a fortunate life and wanted to share that with others. But as economics editor Peter Martin observed in The Sydney Morning Herald, perhaps Forrest had simply discovered that giving feels good. He cited a Harvard Business School study in which a happiness questionnaire was given to staff at a large Boston firm one month before and two months after they each received bonuses of around $6,800. Many were no happier after the windfall than before, but those who were had given some of the money away to charity or as gifts to loved ones. On average, the more they’d given away, the happier they were.

While the saying ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ holds weight, there is no denying that for those living in poverty or disadvantage, extra cash could provide the basics of shelter, security, and three square meals a day, which contribute significantly to physical and emotional wellbeing. But once you earn enough to reach a comfortable standard of living, more money won’t actually make you happier. A 2010 Princeton University study of 500,000 American households found that the amount of money an individual needed to achieve a standard that brings happiness was an annual income of around US$75,000. After that, there is no measurable positive effect on daily mood. And yet, in our aspirational culture, where the pursuit of wealth and material goods has become a national obsession, we continue to believe that bigger, better, richer is the key to happiness.

When I looked at all the stuff I’d accumulated, it was clear that while it may have cluttered every corner of my small apartment, it had not plugged the gap.

Resigning myself to the fact that this was going to be a process that stretched out over several days, I sat cross-legged in the middle of the lounge-room floor, among the scattered papers, bin bags, and half-empty boxes, and started combing through my past. I found a box full of journals and notepads going back 15 years. And a pile of papers held together with a bulldog clip: email correspondence between my ex and I when we were trying to hold together our romance across several continents.

I read every single journal entry, every card and letter, each university assignment and email printout. I studied every photograph and relived the memories and emotions. It was a difficult experience. On one hand I was struck by how much love I’ve been fortunate to receive from family and friends, and the rich experiences I’ve enjoyed. But the flipside was the pain and angst so apparent in my correspondence and journal entries. It filled enough pages to stock a bookshelf. The self-loathing and insecurity of my twenties jumped from the page as I described how even the simple task of walking into a shop filled me with dread. I assumed the retail assistants were judging me, as if my skin was translucent and they could see right through to my core badness. I couldn’t even order food in a takeaway shop without being incapacitated by paranoia and the fear of looking stupid.

The back of the cupboard also produced an old video camera — the kind that in 2001 would have been described as ‘compact’ but in the era of smartphones was comically bulky. I spent hours watching tapes of myself with my ex, and my friends and family, both in Australia and back home in Edinburgh. I was smiling in these home movies, but as I watched I was struck by the way I carried myself. I was awkward and self-conscious, shrinking from sight, almost apologetic about taking up space in the world. My clothes were mismatched, my hair limp. I remember how much I used to agonise over what to wear and whether I was wearing it right. The scars of high school were still so raw it made me second-guess every fashion choice. As I picked out clothes, I’d hear the voices of the girls who yelled out a running commentary on my outfit as I walked home from school. Every time I put on makeup, I’d think of the time a classmate on a school field trip stole my fire-engine-red lipstick and hid it, telling me she did it for my own good because I looked like a cartoon clown.

The girl I saw in these movies was distinctly uncomfortable in her own skin, and it made me ache to watch. But also, I was proud. I was learning to accept myself, embracing my foibles and celebrating all that I was. I was growing into myself in every possible way. Holding on to all this stuff no longer felt necessary. I kept journals from the recent past, but I was ready to farewell the rest. One diary I tore up, page by page, thanking it for its job in getting me here, and reassuring the girl who wrote in it that she no longer needs to carry this shame. She is not defective.

By the end of the week I had tackled every space in my apartment. Superfluous crockery, glasses, and utensils were removed from my kitchen cupboards. The bathroom was cleared of all expired toiletries and old hair and makeup samples. Even my bookshelves got a going-over, with any title that didn’t spark joy taken to the op shop. Goodbye, Hawthorn goofball Shane Crawford’s autobiography. Farewell, The Da Vinci Code. Two full car-loads of excess junk — front and back seat and boot — were taken to the tip. What was left was an apartment that felt cleansed. I’d brought every single part of me out into the light; every crevice and dark corner had been mined, the contents spilled out on the floor. When I’d wanted to give up I kept going. I couldn’t live in the mess. Wading through all my shit, I’d made the tough calls on what parts worked and what parts I could let go. I felt lighter. Everything was starting to fit.