Photo by @HeyMariah
Welcome to Evergreen! Fall 2019 Whoop-Whoop! Is it just me or does it feel like it’s already been an entire school year since we last had classes? Probably because here at Evergreen our classes don’t start until OCTOBER, which just seems wild. It seems like every other student in the state has already bought their new backpacks and 0.50 cent Target folders, but if you’re a Greener you get the bonus of an extra long summer. I found out in the middle of August that school wasn’t about to start in the next couple of weeks, but in fact I had an ENTIRE month left to kill. This was my first summer in a long time that I wasn’t working, so the summer stereotype of sitting around and doing nothing was quickly losing its appeal. I decided if I was going to have more time on my hands I might as well put it to good use. I decided I should start a little “Mari Kondo-ing” my house.
For anyone living under a rock or without internet (which, let’s be honest, at Evergreen both are just as likely), Mari Kondo is a viral sensation who helps people spark joy by getting rid of their stuff.
It sounds kind of crazy, especially to someone with a closet that for years can literally not be contained to one typical closet. For the last three years, I’ve taken up two rooms in the houses I lived in just for my closet. I’m not proud of my shopping addiction or my inability to get rid of things. But it is what it is. I’m trying, okay. I promise I’ve seen the 2009 classic Confessions of a Shopaholic and hid behind a pillow when she makes some ultra cringey life decisions.
Saying I needed to get rid of some things is the understatement of the year.
Starting by simply committing to get rid of everything that didn’t fit me anymore was the easiest way I could find. Honestly, that is a great place to start and I highly recommend it to any of my fellow mini-hoarders out there. The problem with this is that there are certain things you don’t outgrow. Specifically, footwear.
“HOW MANY SHOES DO YOU OWN?” Is the question that I asked myself, as I stared at my newly organized shoe wall. I counted 20 pairs staring back at me. Slippers, sneakers, boots, booties, slides, wedges, heels, sandals—you get the idea.
But I realized that those weren’t all the shoes I owned. I must have at least 10 more pairs hiding around, not including the birkenstocks I was currently wearing.
My FIRST reaction was “I can’t be alone in this?!” Right? I can’t be the only person out here with an amount of shoes that seems embarrassingly large. So naturally I took to Instagram to find out more.
How many shoes do other people have? Do people typically seem to own three pairs? Or 30? I needed answers.
I polled my Instagram followers and got 85 responses to find out: “How many shoes do you think a person should own??”
56% voted for less than ten
44% voted for more than ten
I was shocked! I was in the minority. I thought more than ten for sure. So I had to know more details.
I asked 91 people this time: “How many shoes do you own?”
46% said they owned less than ten pairs
54% said they owned more than ten pairs!
Sweet! This time I wasn’t in the minority anymore.
I continued the polling, asking the question “if people owned less than 10 did they own more than five?” The consensus was a BIG YES—no one surveyed owned less than five pairs of shoes. Which honestly, in Washington state makes a lot of sense. We have such wildly changing weather, that I think you need at least five different pairs to get you through all of the weather changes.
The results were similar for if people owned more than ten pairs of shoes. If someone owned more than ten pairs, they were most likely to own more than 15. Again the results were similar if people owned 20 pairs of shoes. If someone owned more than 20 pairs of shoes the number was likely more than 30.
To me that makes a lot of sense because if you’ve committed to that many shoes you might as well go all the way! And if you have five to ten shoes, that makes sense too because you really are a minimalist at heart.
One gal said she has more than 50 pairs of Vans alone! Another told me she used to have 75 but proudly got the number down to around 35, which I am honestly very impressed by. I think the lowest number came from one of my male friends who only had five pairs of shoes in total because he had two or three pairs of sneakers and soccer specific shoes. Sports, am I right?
While I do take full responsibility for my shoe loving ways, I do wonder how infiltrated we are in the part of Western culture that says “SALE SALE SALE.” I also wonder how fast the fashion industry creeps into our homes and dorms.
Realizing I have so many items to donate that are in good shape and could still get a lot of life out of the, has moved me from simply researching the numbers of shoe collections to thinking, “where can I give and donate my clothes so that they will do the most good?” Because, sure, I could drop them off at Goodwill but people will still have to go and buy them and it’s all just continuing that consumer culture.
So now I’m on the hunt to find the best organizations to donate gently used clothes to—specifically, places where women can go to receive clothes for free because not everyone is in the place to buy clothes new or used. Times can be tough no matter who you are and college students feel the pinch of their wallets very acutely with big tuition costs countrywide.
If you know of any please let me know! Either respond to us at The Cooper Point Journal or hit me up on instagram @HeyMariah.
@HeyMariah is a student at The Evergreen State College. Her hobbies include making TikTok videos for her 63 thousand followers and drinking hazelnut lattes. She loves that Evergreen’s mascot is a Geoduck who wears a shiny glitter shell because she’s never met a glitter-anything she didn’t love. You can catch her in the morning listening to NPR on the daily and flying to Hawai’i as much as possible.
