Ever since I’ve read The Happiness Project, I have become completely and utterly obsessed with cleaning out my closets. I thought to myself, “I don’t have that much stuff and this should take no time at all!” I looked at it as fun, like the author Gretchen Rubin did. It would be a way to create more space and give away stuff that was no longer needed. Well, I’ve accomplished all of that, but it was much more taxing than I had anticipated.
The store Michaels was my saving grace with providing organizational tools. I got all of the items pictured below for less than $30, when I was about to spend that much on only two of the decorative photo boxes on Amazon. The memorabilia that I’ve been holding onto for decades, now fits into these pretty boxes; whereas, last month all of this stuff was in 3 large storage bins. Granted, I did throw out some stuff and give away some things, but I’m super proud of what I was able to achieve. Gretchen Rubin was right – I felt happy after cleaning out my closets.
My organizational tools!
When I was going through my closets, I found amazing stuff that I had long forgotten – memory boxes from old friends, letters from my cousin when I first moved down to Georgia, and short stories I wrote from my pre-college days (even from elementary school!). I used all of my new-found boxes to organize these wonderful mementos. The scary part was that I came across old pictures of ex-boyfriends, ex-friends, and my wildest college moments that I’d rather not remember. All of those items went into the trash. It’s not like I did anything criminal, I just would rather not hold on to that part of the past. As Buddha said, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
Prosey Rosey 