Let me start off by saying I have not watched the Marie Kondo show that is taking the world by storm on Netflix yet, however, for the past two months my husband and I have been doing some serious decluttering to our home. We’ve lived in this house for almost six years, and we make honest attempts at trying to do the occasional spring cleaning. Being that we want a change of scenery, we thought it’d be a good idea to get a jump start on whittling down our clutter. I also felt the mess in our home was keeping me from reaching my full potential. I firmly believe that excess, in the form of clutter, can soak of energy and clarity that was meant for you. This is why so many people have to leave a space so that they can think more clearly or find their focus. It’s because your current environment is taking away the very thing you were meant to receive.
When we first got started I felt like the entire process of decluttering was giving me flashbacks to my Ph.D. program. You know where you do all this work only to look back and see that you’ve barely scratched the surface of the problem. In my mind, decluttering is almost like an onion there are layers, the process may very well, in fact, like an onion, make you cry. At least that’s how I felt every time I’d dive in only to come up and find that I’d just moved a pile of stuff from one side of the room to the other. Slowly, but surely, with the help of a book called “Decluttering At the Speed of Life,” and a list I made of things we no longer needed in each room. I started to figure this whole declutter/organization thing out, and we were loading up the curb on trash day or hauling big bins of home decor, kitchenware/cookware, and other things we had big plans for that never came to fruition to our local Good Will. I even made $50 by selling an IKEA table that we barely used.
Even with our house looking less and less like a storage unit there is still one area that I struggle with decluttering — my makeup hoard stash. To be fair to myself, I have downsized my makeup collection quite a bit, going from a nine drawer IKEA Alex to just using two and a half acrylic makeup holders. I even customized the top half of one holder for my lipstick collection. After many failed attempts at downsizing, I realize that the reason why I’m holding on is that this stash represents my first real foray into the blogging world. I started as a Beauty Blogger with a blog named Cosmetically-Challenged and did that almost three years before rebranding to Being Melody. Getting rid of my makeup would make it feel like I’m closing the door on that chapter of my life.
Completely gutting my makeup collection would feel as if I am closing the door on connections and friendships I’ve made along the way. Blogging about my love for all things beauty gave me an outlet from the PhD program and in many ways helped propel me to where I am today. It gave me the confidence to share my personal story with my horrible picture taking skills. It helped me grow into an entrepreneur and gave me access to opportunities that I would never have gained without it. This is why I can’t just throw it all away. For me, my makeup represents more than limited edition collections or the perfect red lipstick even though all thirty shades of red I own are perfect. I’m going to grant myself grace and revisit my makeup collection when I’m ready and at that time if I can only get rid of just a little bit more I’ll be okay with that.
