I inherited half-hoarder from my dad and half-sentimental from my mom. When I was younger, it seemed like I could never keep my room clean. I was always the type of kid to have absolutely everything laying out all over the floor, living out of clothes that never left my stack of laundry baskets and drinking out of week-old water from the millions of stacked cups.
And I tried being clean. Years of my parents entering my room and audibly sighing had caused me to go down the organization rabbit hole. I watched Marie Kondo’s show on Netflix tons of times, tried and failed to get tips from my sister, and made various attempts to clean it. But again and again, I tried and failed. So, how did I end up doing it? I have a myriad of theories about how I started to become “clean,” and I wanted to share them with you all.
I wanted more than anything to go to a college away from home. It wasn’t because I didn’t like my parents or I was running away from our divorce-broken house, but because I would feel smarter knowing I wasn’t going to the same state school everyone I knew was going to. I had this weird obsession with intelligence growing up, mainly because it was considered my most prominent trait. I was the smart and funny one, not beautiful or kind, but smart and funny. I put everything I had into this idea that I was different from everyone else. When I decided my true calling was animation, I thought I got over this idea. All of a sudden, my love of story was more important than being smart. Then I got rejected from my dream schools and I ended up at the same old state school I didn’t want to go to.
Long story short, I decided to get my “away from home” through living in the dorms. You can probably guess that I did not live the dorm dream where I lived with someone I became best friends with. I had a roommate who would not clean up after herself. Out of all my messiness, I considered the worst sin to be food left out. My clothes could be scattered on the floor, but as long as I know which ones are clean I don’t care. Posters could be falling off of my falls, but at least I had some decoration. Water cups could be out, but soda cups could not. As you could again probably infer, my roommate was not of the same mind. She would bring plates from our dining hall and set them out on her counter, have fast food sitting on her floor where she slept (I cannot make this up). I expected myself to be messy as well, but I wasn’t.
I like to think that my first theory is either because I liked comparing my clean space to her messiness, or I was so scared of being judged that I was forced into cleanliness (a version of the theory that appeared after I shared a room where my space was clear view of anyone walking in the door when I lived in Florida).
There’s this widely known fact that even though you might be legally considered an adult by the government, your frontal lobe is in constant development. Now as of writing this, I am 19 years old, but that can’t be said that some form of development hasn’t happened since I was born. Maybe I just finally grew up?
However, this theory has been disproven. Exhibit A, my older sister. We were always foils of one another. I was smart and funny, she was nice and beautiful. I was the messy one, she was the clean one. It wasn’t until she moved back home after she extended her program in Florida that we both noticed a new difference: our roles had flipped. She suddenly was unable to keep her room clean and I was unable to let anything sit astray in mine.
But what if there was another reason why I became clean?
When I was back at home, I had this sudden urge to go through everything I owned. See, I usually had a very unsavory duo of sentimental hoarding guiding all of my decisions. If something was cute and I liked it for as long as I was in a store, I would buy it. I had been doing that ever since I had any money to spend at all, which was probably since I was 10 going to the mall with my friends.
At the dorm, I naturally had less things to worry about because I couldn’t move everything I owned. At home, I had hoarded things from ever since I was young. I realized that I was messy because I didn’t have a place to put everything. I started watching all kinds of unhauling and cleanout videos, trying to mimic it for myself. What really made a difference in my life? What did I enjoy?
Obviously, this is the most prominent theory in my self-reflection. Ever since I seriously went through my own things, I have cleared both my mind and my space. I have been able to do things that I never thought possible (I have a COUCH in my room), and I have discovered so many more hobbies through making space for the things that I love.
It does, in fact, get better. You just have to learn how you work. For instance, I need to be able to see what I own to enjoy it. There's no point for me to put everything in a box, I need to be able to see it with my eyes. Also I need to repeatedly go through the things I own, that way I don't have to find places to put things that I cannot store.
I feel like everyone can become clean over time. All it takes is a few times watching Marie Kondo and constant comparison to other people! Here are some things I'm planning to organize:
-Unfortunately, I was an art major, so I own a bunch of supplies that I'm never going to use. I plan to go through and give some of my supplies I don't use to my friends or donate it to this special area we have in the art building. I think it's fun to be a crafty girl, but I need to actually use the scraps I have to junk journal before collecting anymore.
-Sentimental items are really hard for me to let go of. I've recently come up with several ideas on how to scrapbook items to make it into one cohesive place. I really want to use the scanner that is built into my mom's printer so I can also have scans of bigger items, that way I don't have to actually keep them. Scrapbooking is a great way to combine all of them together in one easy-to-view location.
-Technology and cords has proven to be a difficult thing for me to sort through. I've been given more alexas than I can count, more phone cords and other things I definitely have enough of. Because I own a Wii, batteries have also proven to be a pain for me to deal with, mainly because it's a guessing game about what is charged and what isn't.
So have fun! I think it’s so much fun to go through what I own, mainly because it makes me grateful about how many things I own. Being able to recall memories with certain items or, if I want to donate them, think about how much good they’re going to give the next person is such an amazing privilege that I get to have. So get organized! Have fun!
PS: I’m a Butterfly on the clutterbug scale if you care at all.