When we move into our own homes whether it be dorm, apartment, or house we spend days (weeks or months) planning and bringing to life our favorite pins from Pinterest. We do meticulous shopping find new bedding, rugs, picture frames, and storage bins. We pack only what we want to bring into our new space to make it PERFECT. We color code our closet and want every shoe and shirt to be in its place
We want this new space to feel like home.
Yet somehow when we go back home home, it still feels like “home”. We leave yearbooks, prom dresses, old hair tools, and stuffed animals. Our bedding is still the cloud sheets we bought when we were 13. The old shirts that we loved but never would wear again are still in the closet. It feels stuck in time; paused one day when you were 17.
When I went home for Christmas I was confronted by the pile of stuff I left quickly 2 Junes in a row. When I graduated school I had to pack up 3 years of stuff that made up the home I had with my roommates. I had living room, bedroom, and kitchen furniture that I had to find a place to store. I had to decide what were necessary kitchen things that were not going to be supplied by Disney Housing (and I still under packed). So in deciding what was going to Florida and what was going to stay home I had to then figure out where everything was going to go because not everything was going to fit in my childhood bedroom (especially because SO much of my room was still “normal”). I packed enough clothes and things to make me feel at home for 7 months (that turned into a year). I returned home the next June to bring more things to officially move to Florida but I only had a few days to pack it and it had to fit in a “compact car” I was renting. Long story short… or long… I still had a lot of stuff back in my parents house and when I went home for Christmas with a few extra days than I had either time I was officially packing. I decided to tackle my childhood room! Now this isn’t to say that I completely packed or got rid of EVERYTHING. I still have things in my childhood room that are not necessary to my current life and are not necessary for my room to be the guest room I want my parents house to have.
The funny thing is this whole cleaning my life spree happened before Marie Kondo’s show even premiered! HA!
I have found Marie’s show so therapeutic, so soothing watching people get their lives together. But the episode that really got to me was titled “Sparking Joy After a Loss”. Now, spoiler alert, in this episode a woman decided she wanted to tidy up her house/life after her husband had passed. As morbid as it sounds I feel part of her desire to clean the house was simply in not wanting to have her kids have to clean the mess that she was dealing with in addition to wanting to just simply enjoy her space again. The woman said she had tried to get her kids to come help out in cleaning out their stuff and they told her “I’m too busy Mom” which simply broke my heart.
So here is my request and reminder to each of you. Don’t leave all your stuff in your childhood room. Don’t leave your mom (or dad) with the task of dealing with your stuff, they already did the hard work of raising you. I imagine dealing with our stuff brings up negative feelings that their baby isn’t going to be coming home every night. Getting rid of our stuff is almost like we died. Obviously we didn’t, we just spent all of our time building up our new space and forgetting all that stuff in our old space even existed.
If after a year (or two) you haven’t thought about any of the stuff in your old room, please make the effort to go home and help Mama gain a guest room.
The Wordy Over Thinker 