When I first read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I couldn’t fully understand the idea of things that “spark joy”.
As someone who’s generally quite unsentimental, I don’t have a lot of things, and I can be quite ruthless when culling my personal possessions.
Things were functional or they weren’t. Either I used them regularly or they belonged with someone else.
The idea of things being happy when used, that I can understand. I always feel sad for possessions that lie dormant in my space and prefer that they find a proper home elsewhere.
But things that spark joy were a mystery. I couldn’t understand how things could spark joy.
Until I bought my current laptop bag, which I feel this inexplicable love for.
And suddenly, I remembered that as a child I had a t-shirt I wanted to wear every day. I had a pen I always carried around, a stuffed toy I couldn’t sleep without (I still have it).
As a child, it’s so much easier to experience joy, to really feel it in all its splendour, to let it wash over you with no baggage attached.
There are days when I miss being a child. And this nostalgia reminds me to savour every moment.
