Lessons, Thoughts and Inspiration From My 30-Day Reset

Zero Waste Style

Early on in my thirty-day shopping ban which I completed from July-August, YouTube recommended me a video about a woman called Corinne Loperfido, and I found her lifestyle and ideas absolutely fascinating - here's the video for you. 

Clutter and Emotional Labour

I found that I was still thinking a lot about decluttering, which probably had a lot to do with moving to a smaller house. But I couldn't really find a lot to clear out, which I suppose is both good and bad - we like and use the things we have, but we have so much that it feels like everything is just crammed into the house. We have been trying to part with a lot of the Spud's baby stuff, but are finding that we can't give it away, much less sell it. Not sure if the market is saturated, or if people simply don't want second-hand baby things at the moment. In the meantime, I've become very aware of the amount of emotional labour I'm doing around household maintenance, cleaning and tidying. 

In her book Sustainable Minimalism, Stephanie Seferian observes, "Your "mental load", or emotional labor, describes the total sum of responsibilities required for you to manage your household. Women tend to experience heavier mental loads than men, as the never-ending domestic juggling act of organizing, thinking, planning and keeping a home afloat continues to be considered a woman's job." I see this a lot - many of my friends have partners who want to be helpful yet somehow 'can't see mess' (hello, social conditioning!), and certain of my in-laws, jokingly but repeatedly, refuse to defer to Dai about topics from wedding planning to holiday prep and family birthdays, insisting that 'I am in charge' of anything organisational.

Unfortunately for them, I am usually trying to hold on to so much information already - to-do lists, menus, shopping lists, appointments, which food is going off in the fridge, when are we having guests and where are the sheets for the sofa bed, playdates, upcoming celebrations, birthday lists, expiry dates for vouchers, and more - that I'm getting pretty scatty (yes, I do write these things down! But I still have to actually remember and execute the right tasks at the right time, which requires brainal resources (that's definitely a real word)) and therefore I'm extremely firm about which jobs I have delegated to Dai, and will not be budged. This month, without Etsy to distract me, I couldn't help but notice that the household chaos - and my inability to do much about it singlehandedly - was driving me up the wall, and I found myself in tearful fury over a crisp packet that had not managed to migrate to the bin under its own steam.

My urge to declutter (or go live la vida Loperfido in a van) probably had more to do with this sense of overwhelm than anything else. There is in fact an entire book on the subject of women's emotional labour, Fed Up by Gemma Hartley, but to be honest I'm frightened to read it. Even reading the Kindle sample made me cringe. (Dai, I should add, is generally very thoughtful and decent to live with, and happily does his share of the housework, but works very long hours, which is why two months after moving house we were still living almost entirely out of boxes.)

My vague hope is that, whilst I'll probably never be a minimalist, if I can at least slow the influx of new things into our house, as things wear out and/or are outgrown and given away, we will eventually reach some kind of equilibrium. Or at least will avoid being buried under a tower of books, clothes and toys.

Environmentalism, Joy and Style

The other thing that kept coming up for me during this month was about clothing and style, which of course related back to why I had decided to try to quit shopping in the first place, in 2019. I realised that, although my spending on clothing had been fairly high since I stopped this year's attempted low-buy (although still low by my previous standards - maybe three items of clothing a month, predominantly second-hand from eBay, but also from small businesses and indie designers in physical shops and on Etsy), I'd been making much better choices and was really loving what I had. I still wouldn't be able to put a label on my style, but I had a much better idea of what I would wear - and better yet, what I enjoyed wearing, what I would be excited to put on in the morning.

Corinne Loperfido's video reminded me that it's possible to care deeply about the environment and still have personal style. I'm not sure why I tend to fall on the side of sackcloth and ashes, but this habit I fall into of wearing baggy, stained old clothing in the name of sustainability is frankly a bit depressing. Throughout the month, happily, I learned to shop my wardrobe and put together outfits that I enjoyed wearing, without constantly craving an influx of the new. And, thankfully, without falling once again into the hair-shirt-frump trap.

Don't get me wrong - eco anxiety is a logical, sane reaction to the state we're in, and conscious consumerism isn't a magic bullet for the ills of the fashion industry. I know that the only way forward for us as a society is to buy and produce less. But I noticed as well that this kind of joyless, performative environmentalism had found its way into other aspects of my life. I don't, obviously, mean choices like reusing the bath water to water the garden, or using cloth rags instead of paper towels - in my view these are just sensible things that should be totally normal (and are for many people). I mean things like... not buying a drink if I'd forgotten my reusable bottle, and ending up with a pounding headache. I realise that in the long run we will all have to make changes and, yes, sacrifices if we want to actually survive the climate emergency, but in the meantime we still live in a consumer society, and me getting heatstroke saves nothing and helps no one. 

Learning To Trust Myself

Also on the topic of style, this month I started seeking out and reading more blogs. I have been working on a book that grew largely out of this blog, so I wanted to look for ideas for new blog content so that I could keep posting without reproducing my entire book - it would be nice if there were some surprises (although there is some stuff I'd love to tell you!). Having devoted a good chunk of time to blogging previously, I was wary of falling back down the rabbit hole, but it was really exciting to see what's out there now and how the blogosphere has grown and changed.

Most of all, I was extremely excited to see women in their 30s, 40s and up to their 60s and beyond really embracing style - and I don't mean cookie cutter fashion, I mean women who are absolutely doing their own thing and looking phenomenal. I realised (again) that I've been trying so hard not to obsess over my appearance that I've essentially become invisible; I'm nervous of taking risks or drawing attention to myself, I feel guilty for spending time on my appearance, and - I'll admit it - there's a little voice that says "you're being selfish... You're a mum now...you've put on too much weight," and worst of all "you're too old." Well, clearly not.

I also found some old photos from yet another blog I used to have on the go, from a time when I felt absolutely the worst about the way I dressed - I remember feeling stressed and anxious all the time, doubting my ability to put an outfit together, spending literally entire days on Pinterest trying to find the secret keys to good style... And now I want to shake myself and scream with frustration, because it turns out that I looked great (IMO). This is exactly the kind of thing I would like to be wearing now. Except I gradually replaced all my funkier clothes with bland, anodyne stuff, a change which I can almost directly pinpoint to a time in my life which included a bad online experience and the end of my previous long-term relationship, because I was frightened I wouldn't be able to make my way alone in the world and meet new people if I was Openly Weird.

I will forever regret parting with this t-shirt instead of mending it. Still have the boots, though

This blue bob was epic. And extremely blue

I should have trusted my own opinions and ideas, as it turns out I had my own sense of style and aesthetics all along - I just let it get eroded by fearfulness. But it's never too late, and I can start from where I am with what I have, and just learn how to be me again.