DCLTR-R

Hi, I’m Amanda.  My story begins in London, May 2018.  I had been working in the corporate world for nearly twenty years, spending much of what I earned on things that promised to make my life easier and more enjoyable.  And yet somehow I had reached a point where all of these magic solutions were instead cluttering every surface and cupboard, causing frustration and exhaustion, and certainly not delivering the easy enjoyable life I’d been promised.

Seeking an alternative solution, I stumbled across a book by Marie Kondo, about the Japanese art of tidying.  The book was called “Spark Joy” and I very clearly remember sitting on my bedroom floor, surrounded by piles of laundry that wouldn’t fit back in the cupboards, and reading the whole book in one go. 

I had been trying to keep everything organised and cleverly stored, but that wasn’t working.  Marie Kondo’s suggestion was to start by removing items that did not spark joy and to start the process with an easy category of things.  For me, that was the linen cupboard. 

Emptying every towel, sheet, bathmat, pillowcase and cushion onto my bed was a revelation: there was enough linen for a mansion.  The first few items were easy to put in a donate bag - grubby towels, sheets that didn’t fit any bed, scratchy old blankets, outdated duvet covers - and I was soon down to 4 sets of linen per bed.  I could have stopped there, but I had the bit between my teeth and wanted to prove to myself that I could get to an “optimal” volume of bedding. On I went, comparing this white double sheet with that white double sheet, determinedly ignoring the noisy inner demons shouting “I’ve paid good money for this” and “but what if …”.  Two hours after I started the process, I finished: my linen cupboard looked fab and the feeling of relief and satisfaction was amazing.  So amazing that I kept on going and going.