“I guess I’ll have to start a nudist colony,” I told my husband. He didn’t seem to take my declaration seriously, so I figured I’d better amp it up. “I’ve been learning from Dawn at The Minimal Mom on YouTube and she said that if something isn’t an eight or higher out of 10, it isn’t worth owning.”
Dawn explains how everything we own is talking (and sometimes screaming) at us in some way or another. If it’s laying on the floor, it’s (silently) saying “pick me up!” If it’s left on the counter, it’s saying, “Your counter is messy.’. If it’s piles of dishes, they are saying, “Wash me!”
In our closets, the conversation is rather nasty. In my case, the things in my closet were “saying” things that I would never speak out loud to another human. Can you imagine if your closet talked to your friends like it talks to you!? – “You seriously don’t fit in that?” – “Suck it in, you ate too much” – “Well this looks frumpy” – “Nothing fits you right” – “You’re just an awkward size.” – “That color makes you looked washed out” – “Maybe that would look better if you’d stand differently” – “I guess this will have to do – you don’t have anything better”
If we said these things to a friend, I don’t think we’d be friends for very long. But we let our closets talk to us like this all the time. If my daughters told me that someone was saying these things to them, mama bear would not have that. After a speech about taking our thoughts captive and rehearsing the fact that we are made and loved by God, I think we might find some more positive friends.
And yet, mama bear was keeping a whole closet full of “jerks,” because I “didn’t have anything to wear.” The sick thing is, studies show that women only wear 20-30% of their wardrobe, so that means that 70-80% of that wardrobe is just sitting in there, telling us how everything is wrong with us.
Back to my colony. If you’re ever planning to start one, I’d caution you on who you’d invite to join. I invited a few friends, but my solicitations weren’t warmly received. I mostly got raised eyebrows and confused looks. However, I was feeling desperate. If I was honestly supposed to get rid of everything that wasn’t an 8 (or higher) out of 10, my drawers would have tumble weeds in them.
Despite my declined solicitations, I couldn’t help but wonder – what if we silenced the 80% of things talking to us in our closets, so we could think more clearly? The 80% isn’t even being worn anyway!
But where to start? All of this seemed too overwhelming. I have a bit of an “all or nothing” personality (thus the colony), so I wasn’t sure where to even start silencing the jerks. If I silenced one, I felt like it wouldn’t make a difference. I’m more of an extreme-change girl. I like the “drag it all out in the yard and burn it in a pile” change. My poor husband.
Dawn’s teaching fueled my fire. She kept telling me that silencing the jerks would give me more peace. She told me that I should love the clothes I wear and that sounded more lovely than I could imagine. She told me that she has never regretted becoming a minimalist for one day of her life. (And she’s thrown out 80% of everything she owns!)
So what did I do? Get the matches, obviously!
I wish. First, I procrastinated… like, for months. I wasn’t sure where to start, or how to end, or what to do. My closet felt like a beast that had bested me. After months of procrastinating, I asked a friend to hold me accountable to it. The trouble is, I failed to set up what that accountability would look like (which is really no accountability at all!). So then I procrastinated a few more months, wondering how I could ever gain the upper hand on the “jerks’’ in my closet.
Perhaps I just needed to get the lighter fluid.
These little articles have to be kept around a certain word count, so you’ll have to wait until next time to find out what happens next.
Meet your farmer – Liz Gerdes. She and her husband run a farm-to-table raw milk dairy and Airbnb in Caledonia. If you’re looking for raw milk “fresh off the farm,” visit www.gerdesfreshfarm.com or just email Liz at elisabeth.gerdes@gmail.com. First time visitors – mention this article and get a free half gallon of milk!
Honey-Sweetened Rhubarb Lemonade
3 cups rhubarb stalks
Juice from 2 lemons
2 quarts water
1/3 cup (or more) honey and/or maple syrup
Wash and cut rhubarb into 1/2-inch cubes then add to large pot with water. Cover and place over medium heat. Cook at a light boil for 30 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before handling.
Carefully strain liquid into a pitcher and discard solids. Stir sweetener into the pitcher and let cool.
Serve over ice once completely chilled.
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