How Marie Kondo Helped Me Sort Out My Gender
The book arrived, and after weeks spent suggesting he read it, I finally decided to live by example. I did as Marie Kondo prescribed: I emptied my closet and bureau into a pile on the living room floor, separated their contents into a peak of jackets and a peak of dresses. One by one, I picked items up and asked myself whether they sparked joy. If they didn’t, into the discard pile they went.
I didn’t take me long to see it, what the discard pile was. It was only the skirts, only the dresses, only the flowers and lace and sparkles. It was everything I’d bought hoping that some colleague might say: Isn’t that cute?
I burst into tears, shame filling me entirely, and then I laughed about the fact that this book had made me cry, this silly, stupid cleaning book.
I think if Marie Kondo read this article she'd be thrilled. This is exactly what she talks about in her books, writ large - that honing your understanding of what brings joy into your life actually teaches you to see yourself and love yourself for what you are and what joy is to you.