Cleaning involves moving -- not only am I moving myself, but I also have to move objects ... Objects which have gathered dust that will go flying into my face causing me to slaughter tons of innocent brain cells by sneezing. And what does my misery get me? Large, sort-of-but-not-really-organized piles of STUFF all over my room and I can't find a single thing I'm looking for.
I probably wouldn't be faced with any of these problems, though, if I'd just stop being such a pack rat. I can search and search through all of the heaps of junk for any given object, but the only things I ever find are memories ... Memories and my worthless belongings. Oh look, there's the pile of giant scrunchies that always adorned my hair back when it wasn't always in my face ... And over there is an assortment of glittery make up people gave me in our middle school years that I've only broken out a handful of times to liven up my stage make up! Here are all of the bottles of obnoxiously colored nail polish that I used to insist on wearing, much to my piano teach's dismay, and ... What's that? Oh, the miscellanous pile -- I can see the box of incense that my parents once mistook for drugs. That is one big heap of nothing. The two biggest piles, however, are the clothing pile and the paper pile.
The clothing pile is made up of ... well ... clothes ... but they're not too small or anything ... I just stopped wearing them. Why? I honestly can't tell you. But I CAN'T just donate them ... What if one day I want them again? I assure you that this has yet to happen, but I just won't part with that silly peasant shirt with the huge sleeves or that silly fuzzy sweater with that terrible pattern. This refusing to let things go is even worse with my paper pile. Don't get me wrong, I'm quick to toss out my old school notebooks and binders, but when it comes to pictures, Christmas cards, programs from every single performance I've ever seen or been in, or even ticket stubs from EVERYTHING, I just can't bear to think of them sitting in a dump somewhere. Do I ever reread those holiday cards? No. Do I look over the programs? No. Do I ever relive moments caught in photos? Only if they're on Facebook. And yet, SOMEHOW, I just can't throw these things away. The funny part is, I usually don't even remember that I have them until I discover them when it's time to throw them away. I HAVE to keep those seemingly useless papers just in case one day, when I'm old and senile, I break all of the rules of the human mind and remember a repressed memory (I can't figure out how that'd work but I bet I can do it.) about a box hidden away somewhere that contains Valentine cards from the fifth grade.
In case you're wondering how I ever finish cleaning my room, I normally relocate the sort of sorted mountains of items to various places in my house where I know they'll be out of my way but safe. I'm running out of space. Today I almost gave up and got as far as putting my memorabilia in a trash bag, but I haven't quite gotten to moving this trash bag out of my room. Maybe I ought to bury it in the ground where I can dig it up anytime I want. It would be like a time capsule for myself. A big old trash bag full of Jane's childhood buried in the dirt of her backyard, acting as a time capsule. That's almost creepy. I should look into getting a treasure chest. Maybe I'll even draw a map. Because THAT wouldn't be creepy.
Savvy?
