Marie Kondo, the self-professed “tidying freak,” speaks to me when she says, "If you feel anxious all the time but are not sure why, try putting your things in order."

It makes me want to raise my hand like I never did in school and shout: Yes! Yes! I feel anxious all the time! I am anxious about many things; my mother’s health, life and career, time passing.

Last year, drawn to the simplicity of Kondo’s approach, I decided to give it a try. Sort by category, she says. Touch everything and keep only what “sparks joy." And as you let things go, thank them for their service. Chris was also game, so we put every stitch of our clothing on the floor, touched each article, and made stay-and-go piles. We repeated the procedure with our books and carted several bags to the Salvation Army.

Unfortunately, I got bogged down with Kondo’s broad strokes directives after books and clothes (Miscellaneous? How to divide and conquer miscellaneous?). But Chris kept things percolating awhile longer by spreading a category out on the dining room table for sparking after work. In this way we worked through tools, linens, dishes, games, electrical doodads and utensils until Chris, too, seemed to lose steam for tidying.

Last weekend a big snowstorm gave me the impetus to resume tidying and eventually I arrived at the documents category. These included my illustrated Montessori teacher training notes, and my grad school papers from Bank Street College, in particular the joy-sparking unit I designed, called, My what big claws you have! A study of the crayfish.

By now I’d been tidying on and off for months and it was easier to detect feelings that arose in me in relation to objects. I kept several of my Montessori and Bank Street papers because they conjured a happy trajectory of learning.

This was not the case with my grade school report cards, in particular the teacher comments on almost every single one that I was too quiet, never raised my hand and never spoke up in groups. As a former teacher, an introvert and the parent of a quiet child, these comments made me angry. Who were they to judge my personality? Besides, What’s wrong with being quiet in a world that can’t stop talking? No joy there.

And then I came to my long-forgotten rejections folder. I didn’t start writing until my late-30s after ten years of teaching, when my son was a toddler and I stayed home with him. As he learned to walk, I learned to write. Together we would take a few steps, fall down and pull ourselves back up again. This bulging file was a result of my efforts, packed with letters I’d accrued over almost 20 years of writing. Opening it felt like getting hit in the face with the turned-up nozzle of a hand dryer.

It brought back the boxing match inside me as I tried to forge a path that felt like a luxury and a selfish act, and was in contrast to my Lutheran, do-gooder upbringing. It brought back the rage and tears that often followed rejection, not to mention mid-day depression naps, and feelings of intense regret that I hadn’t started writing sooner.

It also brought back the strain on our marriage as I was rejected over and over, year after year, as Chris published book after book, one or two per year.

I re-read several letters, among them personal hand-written and typed notes from many editors including at the New York Times, Marie Claire, Esquire and The Sun. Somehow I’d blocked out these personal notes in what felt like a tsunami of rejection. In several, editors had returned a piece they’d held onto for months as they considered whether or not to use it. They wrote kind words encouraging me to try again. Now, with distance, I could see the promise in the rejections folder; how it wasn’t always about lack of quality, smarts or insight, it was often wrong timing, wrong tone, wrong fit.

As I fanned the letters out, I recalled how, amidst countless form-letter rejections, these personal communications gave this late-blooming, second-career writer, hope. And I saw proof of how I’d pulled myself up again and again, just like my persevering son.

I snapped a photo, thanked them for conveying encouraging messages to me, and set them free.