Crapacity

Lately I've been throwing out crap. It's a wonderful sensation.

I don’t like clutter one bit. Like most humans, I acquire things constantly. I’ve decided it’s simply another effect of being alive. I don’t even know where the crap comes from. It’s just there when you come downstairs in the morning. I was also raised by two people from the “Rinse Off Your Tin Foil and Use It Again” era so I have a hard time getting rid of things that are not entirely repulsive. Sometimes, when I throw away something that isn’t broken or overipe my brain says, "Mom would really hate this.” and I walk away from the trashcan with a sense of guilt and shame.

A hatred for clutter and a conviction to hold on to anything that scored better than “mildly unpleasant” on the scale of Off-Putting Things means I make small piles of crap that I don’t like that I pack away with immense precision and discretion. I’m a very efficient packer. You will not find my crap piles. You will not realize the volume of crap tucked in the dark recesses of my light and airy home.

I’ve been going through my crap piles. In addition to the crap piles, I’ve been going through clothes and tossing out lots of my sad-sack, “I’m a depressed art student” shirts and the enormous pants that fit me in high-school when my affinity for sugared cereals cared not the hour of night. I started a Goodwill pile back in March when Brett noticed that most of my shoes had holes in them. He was truly appalled when he hastily barged into my closet. He insisted I throw out all five pairs of my blown-out, rubber shoes that I wore hiking across Scotland, into sterile lecture halls, and countless trips to the Surf Bar. “But all my memories are in those shoes!” I argued.

“Why do you have them on your shoe rack like they’re still an option?” he asked, ignoring the sentimental value of shoes with no soles. All the shoes he said I had to throw out sat in a bag by my door for weeks. I did finally toss them (and I haven’t thought about them since) and felt somewhat liberated. I had five new cubbies in my shoe rack. So I started a clothing pile and then space started appearing in my closet. I called Ari.

Ari told me about an article she happened to be reading about decluttering your life. (Ari and I have what we call ‘parallel lives’. We often find out that we’re listening to the same song, cooking the same dinner, reading the same article, or one time, buying the same dishes –all at the same time but in different cities.) She told me the key is to be brutal. “It needs to ‘spark joy’” she said, quoting the article, “…otherwise, get rid of it.”

I went back to my piles. “Do you spark joy?” I asked, holding up an itchy cardigan that I never wear. Suddenly, talking to my clothes, telling them whether or not they brought me joy seemed incredibly mean and I kid you not, I felt bad for my sweater. I consoled my sweater. I folded my sweater and put it back on the shelf. “This won’t work for me.” I said out loud, being sure to give an encouraging smile to the contents of my closet. Instead I threw out old paystubs and bottles of dried paint. You see, I pack away my crap piles so effectively that I forget they’re there and then I find dried paint and bank notes from 2007.

Last month, with the addition of 52 vases I had to order for a floral event, my house reached it’s crap capacity or ‘crapacity’ as I continue to call it, despite it never earning a laugh from the oblivious minds I practice my material on. I have since acquired a Lux & Union storage closet for all of my decorative bee-bobs, thrown out Taylors cumbersome fake Christmas tree box, and introduced the concept of throwing inanimate objects away promptly, before I form a relationship with them. My house feels wonderfully clean. While it always appears clutter free, I still know about the presence of the piles, those heavy, burdensome piles. Now I feel as light and airy as my living room does. How about that?