Cleansing the Rat's Nest: Moving 27 Things

After discovering that a kitchen cabinet had become a rodential wonderland while I wasn't looking, I resolved to overhaul the arrangement of my entire house and blog about every step.

That lasted about three days.

I managed to clear out the two cabinets above my stove, relocate all six of my tall plastic containers into them, and then proceeded to survey my spice cabinet and throw out the expired bottles and mystery specimens therein. I kept the top shelf clear and shuffled the basket holding random items like loose measuring spoons and an old carrot peeler from the kitchen counter into that space. Progress.

And then the bottom dropped out.

That's how it goes with most things that light me up. I'll few uber-motivated for anywhere from a span of days to an entire half-season, and then the bottom will fall out. All dopamine gone, all grandiose visions of some kind of different life dissolved.

I still abhor clutter and don't want less-loved earthly possessions to rot in place.

Some years ago, when I was leaning heavily into Westernized woo to feel better in lieu of addressing the issues that were actually making me miserable, I discovered the feng shui-attributed concept of moving 27 things to improve the flow of Chi energy, clear stagnation, attract abundance, and generally increase happiness (it did not heal my codependency or make my then-boyfriend less emotionally abusive, however).

I felt it helped at the time. It's an actionable practice, flexible, repeatable, and, with the proposed limit of 27 things, provides a hard stop to prevent overwhelm. Lovely.

Sometimes I would work with it in conjunction with the challenge of removing 100 things from one's home. Big among purported minimalists at the time, I ingested the rules of the game alongside zero waste lifestyles and plastic-free imperatives.

What were we even supposed to be in the mid-2010s? Inexplicably wealthy, naked hippie-saints living in the woods, I suppose. Ten years later, that might be preferable to now being the unwashed rabble disappointing technofascists by not having enough funds to buy all their AI-powered subscriptions and inconveniencing billionaires and insurance companies by somehow still being alive in spite of all their best attempts on our existence.

Where was I?

Moving 27 things helped me 10 years ago. My undiagnosed OCD and the scrupulosity that came with it felt so morally correct at the time. Some things I could have held onto were donated, but many things I didn't need got gone.

Moving 27 things is helping me again now, as I'm trying to waylay the accumulation of too many things in too many places all at once.

Once a day, but not every day, I'll address 27 or more pieces of little doom piles or hidden pockets of excess. Cabinets and junk drawers are seen. The dresser containing my yarn stash is opened and rifled through. Closets are looked at; sometimes I don't even turn away in tearful despair.

Consistency is important in this massive decluttering effort, but enforcing a streak is a surefire way to spark rebellion.

It's just that there are so many nooks and crannies in my home, all of them, incredibly enough, black holes sucking in all matter and light.

At least I'm housed. It's a good problem to have.

Stay safe out there.