WWJD?

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​Wandering from half-packed room to half-packed room, I find myself asking: WWJD?
 
Alas, I haven’t turned to religion under the stress of deadlines, an impending house-move and turning 40. Rather than calling on high: What Would Jesus Do? I’m asking: What Would Jo Do?
 
My sister Jo is a wonder to me. Her house is clutter free and always has been. I can step into her home unannounced on any given day and be met with a peaceful calm that can only be gained through a sniper’s instinct for tat.  
 
She’s not a Marie Kondo devotee or an Instagram-esque tidier – annoyingly she’s just naturally tidy. She does it without thinking. While my kitchen drawers overflow with paperwork, Kinder-egg toys and novelty bottle openers, hers have the things she needs, plus SPACE. You can see the bottom without need for excavation.
 
That’s not to say her house is a Hyacinth Bucket / Monica Gellar mash up where no glass goes un-coastered. It’s a warm, welcoming, lived-in home. Small pairs of shoes and dog toys lie there and about. She just doesn’t have seventeen pairs of shoes bursting out of a cupboard, or plates of toast crusts lying on the arm of the sofa from that morning’s breakfast. She naturally picks up the things that need to be picked up. It’s a gift I will be eternally jealous of.
 
After six years growing small people (and one small dog) in our first bought and paid for home, we seem to have accumulated a lot of ‘stuff’. Mementos and gadgets. Toys and junk models. Books, books and more BOOKS. As I sit staring at a pile of CDs that haven’t been played since the early-00s, I ask myself WWJD? I already know the answer. Keep a few and dump the rest. What my subconscious-dwelling elder sibling doesn’t know is that I’ve already whittled this pile down from a huge box. That was painful enough. In my head, I’m keeping them to make collages of album covers for some kind of future Pinterest-worthy artwork. I’m holding each one and remembering the shop I bought them in (mainly Spin-a-Disk in Northampton and Sonic Sounds in Lincoln complete with patchy floor and teenage-boy fug).
 
To date, we have donated around 8 bags of clothes and bits and bobs to charity. Without my WWJD mantra, this would have been much less. Add to this a husband who airily casts an eye over the charity bags and says, ‘Oh, you’re getting rid of that?’ as though I had just bundled up one of the children. Honestly, I think I deserve a medal.  
 
I have finally got rid of pre-pregnancy clothes and books I didn’t enjoy. The kitchen gadgets we never used and commemorative plastic cups. Toys the kids haven’t played with for years. Embarrassing early writing samples (not all – I have left a few for my grandchildren to wince over when I’m gone).
 
After all that purging, I reluctantly admit that the loss feels good. I’ve always had a tendency to surround myself with knickknacks, but clearing the clutter from the loft, under the bed, on top of the wardrobe, is scarily liberating.

I won’t go as far as to say no material things matter, because they do. The box with my babies’ hospital tags and the outfits they came home in are more precious than gold. The tattered set of Jane Austens I bought from a charity shop with my best friend as a teenager – priceless. The ticket stub from my first ‘official’ date with the husband – probably means I hoard too much, but I am grateful to have it. And that sums all this waffling up, really. Gratefulness.

Grateful to be in a place where I have things to purge and things to keep, and grateful for my inspirationally tidy sister.



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