A Very Slow Breakup. Lent Day 25

Today I spent some time comforting myself with this image-

What does Marie Kondo (queen of decluttering and OCD sock draw organiser) do when she has to go through clothes her children have grown out of? I like to imagine her in her iconic kneeling position in the middle of an explosion of multi coloured children’s clothing clasping hundreds of items screaming ‘It sparks joy! It sparks joy! Touch these clothes and I will strangle you with these colour coded shoe laces’ And then a bit of spit dribbles out her mouth. 

You see, I have been putting off doing the next purge of Eva’s wardrobe. It takes me about three weeks to pluck up the courage to do it. One might surmise that it is laziness that prohibits me but in this case it isn’t. I just really hate parting with my children’s clothes. 

So Kondo encourages one to to say a proper farewell to clothes if you’re going to end your relationship with them. Once you’ve decided that they don’t spark joy anymore you have to thank them and let them go. 

When I go through my children’s clothes it isn’t that simple. Every single one sparks joy. Every one holds a memory of tenderness. I imagine the soft white little flesh, the little curly heads, the creases under the necks that these fabrics clothed and I am done. I take a very long time to let the clothes go. 

Here’s the Emily Stockil-Smith method of letting go of children’s clothes-

1. Avoid ritual for three weeks. 

2. When you finally pluck up the courage to do it stand in front of cupboard for a full five minutes breathing deeply. 

3. Stroke a few items. 

4. Have a cup of tea. 

5. Return. In a courageous move put out all clothes onto the bed. 

6. Slowly work way through every item. Hold it to your face. Breathe in the smell of your baby. Whisper, ‘Thank you’. Fold it gently. 

7. If item of clothing has been worn by both your children have a weep. 

8. If piece of clothing is still the right size for your child sing, ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.’

9. Leave clothes in a packet somewhere in your home (preferably a passage) that will irritate your partner for at least six months. 

10. Pass packet on to sibling/cousin. 

11.  When you see another child wearing your child’s clothing hold them and stroke them and smell them. Be warned - this may freak them out a little bit. 

I remember when I had Gray reading that having a son is like going though a very slow break up. I would argue that having either sex is like that. Our job as parents is to raise independent, resilient, loving and joyful children (or at least for me it is) and part of that is being both their launch pad and their soft landing. Stephen and I are perpetually surprised when our kids are brave and happy to face new things. And when this happens they come to realise that they can do things on their own... and so the slow break up progresses. 

One of my favourite books to read to my kids is the old classic - ‘I’ll love you forever’. I remember the first time I read it (not remembering the classic Friends episode where Joey read it) I got to the end of it a literally snorted in grief. And then I cried. And then Gray looked at me as if I had accidentally put Bovril and not honey on his sarmies. 

I am going to try very hard not to be that stalker mom who puts a ladder onto the top of her car in the dead of the night to drive to my children’s house on the other side of town so that I can climb into their bedrooms at night and sing to them while they pretend to sleep. I can’t make the same promises when I’m a granny though. That’s a whole other level of obsessive love that deserves its own blog. 

So the packet of clothes is now positioned in its rightful position in the passage. When I walk past it and don’t get a pang of sadness I’ll ship it off to baby Amelia in Cape Town. And tonight I’ll breathe my children in a little deeper. They won’t be mine forever and that’s the way it should be, but for now they are, and that sparks immense joy.