One Drawer Folded

Trying to Marie Kondo my way through laundry.

Photo by Andy Fitzsimon on Unsplash

I read Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in January of 2015 (thank you Goodreads for being my reference on my entire reading life since 2007). I remember thinking two things at the time:

1. That tidying process is going to take forever and,
2. She must not have children

I was correct on #2, though that has since changed and Marie Kondo has pictures of her very young toddlers on Instagram, folding laundry along with her.

I had it on the back of my mind for months that I would go through her tidying process, slowly but surely. There was never the time, and kids make the process seem futile, but I was determined.

Then in September of 2015, I had a stillborn baby girl. Grief hit me and stayed, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I took a few weeks off of work, but the days were completely empty. I formed this notion in my head that I could spend my days going through Marie Kondo’s tidying process, as a distraction and a way to occupy myself. But quickly found that it couldn’t be done — I was so overcome with sadness that getting out of bed was a chore.

Flash forward three years… I lost another baby girl, in February of 2016. In August of 2017, my rainbow baby was…