892. Inner Feng Shui Ninja

You wake up one morning and tell yourself that today is the day you will get rid of everything you don’t need.  That broken lamp in the basement?  Why are you keeping it?  It is not going to magically repair itself.  The toddler toys in the garage?  Please.  Your kids are now six and nine.  The books you read once and promised yourself you would go back and read again “when you had time.”  Guess what?  You will never have that kind of time, and if you do, you will want to go to the bookstore or the library and get a new book you have never read. 

Yes, Inner Feng Shui Ninja has arrived. 

Ninja shows no mercy, takes no prisoners, shoots from the hip, calls a spade a spade, and takes the tiger by the tail.  When you hold up the half of a royal blue sweater that you started knitting in college, she laughs so hard she snorts.  Uh, no.  It’s gotta go. 

Ninja goes room by room, methodically assessing the use of each and every item.  The espresso machine that you use every day?  It stays.  The 12-year-old juicer that broke but you seem to think it might still be under warranty?  Buh-bye.  Your younger son’s school “art project” that he did last week?  Ninja has her hand on it, but you opt for the temporary purgatory of the front of the refrigerator instead.  Ninja is not happy, but she knows how sentimental you can be about “art.” 

“I might frame it,” you justify yourself to Ninja while trying not to sound like you are begging.  Ninja points out that you have five large boxes full of “art” you “might frame.”  You would need to buy a much bigger house to display it all.  Ninja advises you to go through it, piece by piece.  At first it’s hard, but after a short break for chocolate chip cookies and a double espresso, it somehow gets easier.  You get it down to two boxes (one for each child) and Ninja smiles. 

Ninja likes clean, she likes uncluttered, she is allergic to piles.  She wants the excess gone, and she wants it gone yesterday. 

She has heard all the excuses:  It’s valuable, Aunt Sally gave it to me, I might use it.  Ninja shakes her no-nonsense head.  The only thing that matters to her is the final goal:  a livable house. 

“You can breathe better when you have open space,” she explains slowly and loudly, like she is talking to a deaf dog.  “Trust me on this, MOV.” 

Frankly, you don’t trust her.  The last time she showed up (three years ago), she made you get rid of some quirky 1950s costume jewelry that you had originally bought from a garage sale and that you later saw on eBay for $600.  You can’t afford those kinds of mistakes. 

Ninja nods.  “I know, I know,” she says apologetically, “It won’t happen again.  Now, help me get your husband’s dusty stacks of baseball cards into the trash, right next to those old coins.  They’re out of circulation anyway.”

MOV
P.S. And thank you to Shell Flower for the idea for this post (from her comment on my Martha Stewart post)!