After a trip, I have always been one of those maniacal people who need to unpack everything right away as soon as I get home. I want all the dirty clothes put in the wash. I want all toiletries put away. I need all souvenirs or edible things separated and stored properly. I also want travel things like travel bag compartments, totes, backpacks, and luggage put away, stat. The idea behind this is that I want to relax as soon as possible and be in a calm state of mind, and I won’t be able to have any of that unless everything dirty gets cleaned, and everything that needs to be put away is put away.

Well, I’ve added one additional thing to my list ever since I decided to start embracing white clothing a year ago: if I bring white clothing with me, I NEED to set aside time to wash them properly. This means whipping out my trusty Jamaican blue soap bar, scrubbing visible stains with the blue soap, soaking in a bucket, rinsing, and then throwing into the washing machine. It’s an additional step, but I am getting a satisfying kick out of this process. It really only applies to several garments of clothing, plus my white slip-on AllBirds, but I always love the feeling of looking at my whites after they’ve come out of the wash and laying them out to air dry and hopefully further be bleached whiter by the sun.

Maybe it’s a sign of getting older that I’ve embraced this little menial and annoying task that I avoided like the plague for so much of my life. I think the last time I intentionally bought a pure white garment was maybe over ten years ago. And before that, it was in college. And I barely wore those pants from over ten years ago because I didn’t understand how to clean it properly then, and I got so mad at how the stains would never come out in the washing machine on their own. Now, I take real ownership of my whites and do my best to keep them super white! I’m sure my former Jamaican nanny would be proud!