OMG you guys, please halp.

I’m only TWO chapters in and I feel this strange urge to start tidying my house. What the hell is going on??!!
I fear I’ve fallen in deep, somebody please come over here and throw my socks at my face to knock me out.

How is this happening? I mean, I knew this KonMari/Kondo lady would have some kind of witchcraft going on (I mean how else would someone ENJOY tidying the house?), but how is she actually passing this power on to me through her book? I’m serious, you guys. If I don’t post a recap of chapter three in the next few days it means I’ve probably been completely brainwashed and am hiding in a box of my own filth.

In chapter two, she says this thing which confuses me deeply:

“Before You Start, Visualise Your Destination”

Um. What.

I do not own a caravan or the house from Howl’s Moving Castle (but omg how amazing would that be?!! Unless I was that young girl who became an old woman OH GOD).
So as far as I know, my destination is my tiny one bedroom apartment, sitting above the same noisy neighbours in the same complex on the same street I’ve lived on for the past two years.
Wait, does this mean I can leave my mess and just go somewhere else? I’m sorry to say that no, it most certainly does not.

Apparently Kondo’s clients know their ‘destinations’, i.e. how they want their houses to look, the environment they want to live in. It turns out that I myself have absolutely no ability to picture any kind of normal living situation.

When I picture my ‘destination’, I see a unicorn at my window, poking his head through and bellowing ‘good morning’ at 7am each day, holding my breakfast – fresh donuts – on his horn. I picture a bed made of clouds and a giant cat for a couch.

I picture never wearing pants, having a dog bring me beverages and tiny birds doing my hair for me, and a teepee in every room in case I feel like hiding out. I picture a ceiling made of stars and grass under my feet, and Kanye West as my postman and Stephen Fry as my chauffeur who picks me up and reads me poetry. I picture my husband cooking me amazing food with no shirt on and my cats making chit chat about the day’s events and gossiping about the dog. I picture no poop of any kind. I also picture a gigantic workshop on the side of my house where I can make a huge fucking mess. Is that ok, Queen Kondo? Can you make that happen, can you?

So because I wasted several hours dreaming about my ultimate living space, it took me a while to get through this chapter. She says not to move forward until you know where you are heading, but come on, I’ve been waiting 32 years to figure out where I’m heading. I decided that even with my unconventional destination set in my mind, I was ready to continue reading.

Then she says this other thing, and this is an important one: DOES IT SPARK JOY?

Kondo says that if you touch something you own and it doesn’t spark joy, discard it.

Bye bye toilet. Bye bye cleaning products. Bye bye thighs.

*dusts off hands* Ahh, yes, that’s much better.

Uh oh, next she says to go one category at a time. *reconnects toilet*

And this is where she grabs me. This is where it makes sense. “Sorting your shit by location doesn’t work, because your shit is spread far and wide, Bexy”. I swear it says those exact words in the book. Maybe.

Suddenly this woman is making sense. But then, just as I am plotting when to hold Kondo’s suggested ‘grand tidying event’ (it’s best to do it all at once, you know) and how to convince my husband to read this book and then throw 99% of his belongings away, I read something horrifying: “Don’t let your family see”

Run. OMG, I’m pretty sure this is the first line in the Scientology for Beginners Handbook. Run.

THIS IS A CULT, YOU GUYS. AND OMG I HAVE JUST BROKEN THE FIRST RULE OF KONDO CLUB.

And I’m writing a goddamn blog about it. Oops.

And if that wasn’t enough to spark alarm bells, other such sub-chapters include the headings “If You’re Mad at Your Family, Your Room Might Be the Cause” – you’ve got that right, lady. There’s an unused, waste of space motorbike helmet that comes out during every. single. fight.
And, “What You Don’t Need, Your Family Doesn’t Either”. Bye bye, aftershave. Bye bye, men’s undies. Bye bye, cat food. BYE BYE HELMET.

But my personal favourite, and probably why I’m now well and truly invested in this book is the sub-chapter, “Tidying is a Dialogue with Oneself”. I shed tears as I read this, realising that I am not a loser for talking to inanimate objects after all.

I WANT TO START TIDYING, DAMN IT! Tune in shortly for chapter three. I need to get this book out of the way so I can start the tidying process.

Oh god.