Cluttered

My room has always been symbolic of my inner peace. When I leave for school on Monday it is littered with discarded shirts, hangers, earrings missing backs and I have pulled every sweater I own from my closet before I find the only one I ever wear.

By Friday, my bed is hidden, my drawers are hanging open, my shoes are lost, and being a busy student in and out of school, I have not found the time to take care of any of it.

The entire debacle is exhausting and time consuming.

Returning to school after Thanksgiving break, I reflected on what I am thankful for. My sisters, parents, pets, friends, education, the opportunities I get… but not the sweater I got three years ago that still has not been worn or the shirts that are so uncomfortable I will never wear them longer than the second it takes to realize it feels like I am hugging an evergreen tree.

Honestly, even the nice shirts I own or the cozy sweats or the cute rompers make me any more thankful than I am just to have what I need. So why the excess?

With the help of The Minimalists, I set out to half the clothing that cluttered my room and life in hopes of finding a clearer path of sight to what really matters in my life.

“It’s more about living deliberately and more about asking what adds value in your life and cutting out the superfluous stuff,” Ryan Nicodemus, one of the two Minimalists, said in an interview with Los Angeles Weekly.

After going through clothing, shoes and other miscellaneous items several times, I can say with certainty that everything I own is worth the time it costs me to take care of it. It does not distract me from life, and whatever is in my closet is something I like profoundly and will wear often with confidence and comfort that I could only previously achieve with a frustrating amount of closet browsing.

But now, with Thanksgiving behind me and Christmas staring me in the face, what do I ask for? What do I give to others?

Of course, it is OK to buy new things that you need, and it is great to get things you can enjoy with other people. It is also OK to ask for things you want. But where is the line between reason and excess?

It is about what fits into my life. There is only so much of my attention and appreciation to go around. Attention and appreciation that I have to share among friends and family before belongings. So if things that I own take from my time or my energy, or distract me from appreciating what really matters, it is not worth it.

But all of this is not always calculated in a Christmas list. So as the season approaches, when I see something I like, I take the time to think about it over several days.

“Anything that you’re considering ought to sit in your head for at least a week,” Carl Richards, a financial planner going through a clutter cleanse wrote in his article in the New York Times.

My heart is only so big, my day only so long.  I am not going to ask for anything that takes up more room than it deserves in my day or heart. And the joy that is brought to me by people who do not care what I wear as long as it makes me happy are far more lovable than clutter.

Follow Amelia @ameliavanyo