Most of the time, it's not always as easy as we think. To arrange and rearrange stuff to the right places. You have to battle with procrastination, and sometimes it's just laziness that comes into play. The worst part of it is when you are urgently in need of some things, and then you try as much as you can to recall where you left them or the last time you saw that thing.
I have been the type that doesn’t care about my space from the onset. This was because mum had always been in charge of all the tidying and arrangements in the home.
I could remember a time when we scattered everything in the house, we started from the sitting room and then gradually began to take the other rooms one after the other. It took us about two days to complete it.
The fun part of it was that I really had fun seeing some of my old belongings again. There are some things I thought were lost and I have forgotten them, but when the rearrangement happens, I find them again. It’s nice seeing them. But I will still have to say goodbye.
Mum will actually never allow them to remain in the house again. She is sweeping everything away and leaving just the important ones. I got used to this practice, not knowing she was just practicing decluttering. I thought if I had my own space, then I wouldn't even let go of any of my stuff.
When I was out of higher education, I had to get an apartment for my national youth service. So this has got me buying some additional stuff to the ones I have before. Since I am all alone, I can’t borrow stuff from my roommates anymore.
Three months in the apartment, I didn't touch any of my belongings. I actually love the memories I got from seeing the old shoes on the rack, sitting idle like artifacts. It was nice getting to know where my chair and table are. I can jump on my bed even in the dark, and there are a lot of plates that I hardly use in the kitchen, too.
Then I had a quick vacation for about three weeks. I left the apartment closed and the door locked. I was so confident that I would come back to meet everything the way I left it.
Upon arrival, I realized how disorganized the apartment had become, the kitchen became a residence for rodents, and those old shoes and piled books became a dwelling place for cockroaches.
Immediately, I told myself, “I am letting go of all this trash. I felt so lazy at first, but the discomfort was something that triggered me.
I started from the kitchen, discarded all the unused and broken plates and bowls, cleared all of the leaked pots, and had just a few utensils left. Up to the shoe rack, those legendary footwear, their time was up I stacked them up in a box and disposed of them quietly. I was just left with a black shoe and my slippers. As for the bookshelf, I had to select and rearrange the ones I used often and then discard the ones I don't.
I also made a DIY pen holder to keep my pens in good condition instead of finding them almost every time I needed them.
Ever since then, it has become a practice that I adopted. I am always quietly decluttering most of my unused stuff and keeping my space intact.
