Clearing out childhood bedroom

[jajalala]

My mother is planning to sell my childhood home this summer, so she requested I come over and clean out my old room... Ahahaha, I knew it would bite me in the butt one day when I moved out as fast as I could taking only the bare minimum! It doesn't help that my room used to be shared with my older sister, who left a lot of her stuff and also moved all the way across the country. Luckily I only live a few hours drive away, so I was able to sneak up this weekend and get a lot cleared away.

Unfortunately it turns out I may have some hoarder tendencies... Sooo many random little trinkets/collections/papers that I never have any use for, and tend to languish in the back of a drawer or buried in a bookshelf... but still it feels cruel to throw them out! And unfortunately trying to sort through some of these things often turns out to be a positive experience, I look at old drawings or projects and go like "Aww fond memories", and then I'm like "I can't throw these out, what if I forget about them and never get those fond memories again?"

I was able to muster up the strength to throw out A LOT of stuff thought, and donate some things that might fit in someone else's home... But I also ended up with some boxes to bring back to my current apartment. Hoo boy, I'll have to sort those now.

I guess I get very nostalgic when I look back on certain things, and I still haven't figured out how to balance that nostalgia and respecting my past, while also not letting it become an unreasonable burden to the present (Especially since I will likely move out of my current apartment at some point... and I would love to have as few boxes to move as possible).

Comments

[corvidology]

Taking photographs and either putting them in an online or physical journal with a few notes about those 'fond memories' have helped me physically ditch a lot of these things.

I also had some old pieces of clothing that I was hanging on to for sentimental reasons knowing I'd never wear them again but couldn't give them away. I cut a large square out of all of them and made a simple crazy quilt. All the memories, none of the storage issues.

[vriddy]

Aaah, this is always so hard!! Moving around a lot has been helpful to me in throwing things out I was sick of moving without having the time to unpack or even look at, but I still keep too much stuff. Good luck with continuing to figure out what's important and what has fulfilled its purpose! I found the Marie Kondo book helpful last time I had to pack/throw out a bunch of things.

[jajalala]

Oooh photographs might be the move here... Lucky for me I don't have a lot of issues with getting rid of clothes (whenever I actually sit down to do so) but at least some of the stuff I'm clinging onto (like old sculptures, notebooks, and drawings) could be maintained in a digital format... thanks for the suggestion!

[jajalala]

Now that I can't use that house as an indefinite storage space, I think I'll be especially motivated to chuck some of these things for good before my next move... And I've definitely heard of Marie Kondo, my roommate loves her! Though I haven't read her book, I definitely kept some of her tenets in mind while sorting through things ("Does this have a place? Does it have a purpose?")... But ahahaha so many old things "spark joy" that I still struggle a bit

[tropicsbear]

Not exactly the same but this is me with my university notes 😂 "I'll never use these ever again" vs. "But look they're so neat and tidy"

[jajalala]

Aaaaa I have a problem with those too.... I look at a deck of flashcards and I'm like "But what if I need to memorize all the muscles in the body five years from now?? Then I'll regret throwing out these flashcards-"