decluttering: letting go & embracing the future

Rather than trying to promise daily posts, my new goal is to write at least once a week if not every other week.

so my journey at HOME (referring to my parent's house) really just began last sunday when i unloaded my car of the remaining belongings i left behind in Michigan.

while i began my new job at Apple almost a month ago, i was really still a guest in my own house because i hadn't even begun to at least unpack my suitcase. how could i when the current state of my closet and bedroom has been used as storage space since i started college? there was literally no room for me and the other things i accumulated while i was away for the past five years. i was totally tempted to stack these storage bins on top of the other ones i brought home at the beginning of the summer after graduation, but like my hard drive, i knew i was coming close to reaching the ceiling before our house would be packed full of storage bins. i really did not want to unpack them and sort through the other crap in my closet and bookshelves because i knew it would not be quick and easy.

i hate to admit it, but i did just that. i lounged around the house feeling sick, watched tv with tank, and let my stuff sit in a pile in the living room while contemplating how i should begin to sort through my mess. alas, i woke up one morning (maybe it was tuesday) and decided to put my contemplating into action. unfortunately i didn't do a very good job at visually documenting every step of the process. i should have taken a "before" picture before i started attacking each corner but i only started taking photos halfway through the renovation. my room is a square with two windows (on the left of one wall), adjacent to that wall is a wall painted red. the other walls are a light gray with white trim. my parents originally positioned my bed in the corner between the windows and the red wall. at the foot of my bed was a stack of plastic drawers and a large 5-tiered bookcase against the red wall. directly to the right of the bookcase is a mirrored closet that really is not meant to contain much more than one person's regular-sized wardrobe. my mom has from time to time been guilty of storing unwanted clothes, blankets, towels, typical household odds and ends mixed in with the few items i left in there for the times i did come home for a visit. so if you were to just quickly glance in there, the closet would appear quite full. anyways, here's what my room began to look like after i started the DE-CLUTTERING process:

my dad and i rotated the bed so it would be centered against the red wall with the foot facing the opposite grey wall rather than it's previous position against the corner opposite the closet. since the goal was to also move the tall bookcase, i temporarily unloaded my library into a box until i could get the bookcase to the corner diagonal from its current position.

yes, the goal was to clear up this corner and move the beige bookcase to the corner where this black bookcase is currently standing. also, to the left of the black bookcase stand two consoles side by side. they too were fully loaded with a bunch of crap i had accumulated through time. a few of the items i found are displayed below. after painstakingly sorting through each item and discarding a majority of them, i moved one console to each side of the bed. it was not an easy feat.

there were two spindles of old burnt CDs with MP3s, movies, and games my brother downloaded mixed with some originals i.e. Spice Girls and the 1996 Grammy Nominees. I began my music library at a young age (12 years ago I would've been 11 yrs. old) and at that time the iPod did not yet exist hence homemade mixes. unfortunately i think i already threw away all the old cassette tape mixes the first time we moved. so, i threw away most of the CDs, they were scratched up anyway and kept these few so my brother can reminisce and take his own journey through memory lane when he comes home for Thanksgiving.

the contains of this box used to be an authentic marble vase handmade in Egypt. I went on a 5-week tour of the Middle East in summer 2005, bought this in Luxor, Egypt after seeing a man work his magic with marble stone. Considering i paid quite a bit for it and made sure the man wrapped it as securely as he could, I hand-carried it for the remainder (4 weeks) of the trip intended on gifting this to my parents when i returned home. unfortunately the contents didn't quite make it to the United States in one piece. the shards you see above actually occurred halfway through the rest of the trip. i didn't realize it until i opened it upon arrival at home. i was so heartbroken that my prized gift to my parents couldn't even resemble a vase anymore. for some reason, i couldn't part with it right away, left the shards in the box and tucked the box away down in a corner in the lower part of the console in my room. i quickly forgot about it and other items i brought home from other countries began to take up space to my already small room. i could've just thrown it away when i saw it was beyond repair, but maybe it was the thought of having spent so much money on one item only for the tangibility to be shattered before it could even be used. or maybe it was because i bought it in Egypt and even if they were just shards i could still hold on to a little bit of that experience regardless the direction our individual lives (my travel partners) would take us. maybe it was both.

anyways, i've decided that moving on doesn't necessarily mean i have to forget those experiences, i'm just making room for new ones. while these shards apparently meant something to me, i let them go and put them in the trash (after taking photos of them). they were only taking up precious space that i need to use for new souvenirs.

next item(s): two walletbooks. huge back in junior high and high school. i decided to keep them, after all they are full of pictures and it's fun to look at them every few years just to chuckle about how much we've changed (or not) since those days.

a taste of my massively increasing book collection.
- my fave Dr. Seuss book: "Oh the Places You'll Go" gifted to me when I graduated high school from my best friend's sister.
- a few old yearbooks
- marketing research books i bought as reference for some papers i had to write but turned out they were quite good reads--Why We Buy by Paco Underhill is so mind-opening. I recommend you pick up a copy. You'll find yourself in the book more often than you expect.
- some of my books were obviously for classes i.e. Advertising & Promotion. actually, that was probably one of my favorite classes; 1. because i loved the teacher 2. i took it as an elective 3. it's a very well-written textbook.

i did discard quite a few books, but in the end i actually ended up still keeping the majority of them. i'm now trying to convince myself to go through them again and sell some of my older textbooks despite a voice in my head telling me that i may need to refer to them some day for future papers or research i may need to do...i dunno, it seems these are the hardest items for me to let go. hmmm, don't judge.

the hallway and guest bedroom where packed with stuff while i was busy moving and organizing in my room. eventually, it all got cleared out of the way and went to the garage. while i threw away lots of old papers and contents of binders that i've collected from possibly every class in college, most of the other stuff i just threw in storage bins and marked them "Garage Sale items." if anyone needs binders (i have pretty much every size), un-used college rule notebook paper, dividers (color and clear, with or without pockets), notebooks, just let me know! it'll save you some money if you're still in school! don't worry they are all in good condition, i threw away anything that was broken or looked crappy.

after pictures

while i still have very mismatched furniture. at least it looks cleaner, less-crowded, and organized. i removed all the things that are no longer pertinent to this part of my life and kept those that i think can still presently serve a purpose and possibly the future. of course tank is a permanent fixture that i'm glad my family attained three years ago. life wouldn't be half as entertaining without him. he's the one thing (or creature) that brings joy to this home.

transitioning from a 40+ hour work week, living in my own apartment, having my own routine and activities, to working only 10 hours a week, moving everything i owned from that apartment and finding space for it in an already filled household, and coinciding with other people's (my parents) routines and schedules...this entire week was a cathartic process for me. sorting through the past and making space for the present and future is really helping me adjust and cope with the change(s) that have naturally developed in the past few months.

my room wasn't the only room that went through changes, actually i re-arranged the entire family room downstairs as well, i just didn't document it. it may have only been two people living in this big house, but somehow they've just made it their own. my parents didn't intentionally shove us out of the house; my brother and i just went off to college and only came home for a weekend or week(s) here and there. since we weren't here on a daily basis, each room kinda acclimatized to my parents habits, activities, routines, etc. the entire house molded to their daily life. since i will be living with them now, i need to transition from just being a visitor to a daily resident meaning the shape and mold of the house has now to adjust to having a third person with a different lifestyle and routine. i'm not the only one adjusting, my parents are too. it's not just about them anymore, it's about all of us and living harmoniously together.

this re-arranging and organizing was just the beginning of the process. the next few weeks will only see more progress in this development process i call "moving home and decluttering." next week's project is my brother's room and then maybe i'll take a break, find some recipes and take up some cooking. we'll see...it's going to be one week at a time.

thanks for enduring my extremely long posts and therapeutic rants. i don't assume you read it all, but if you do Reader, thanks. thanks for being there with me and going through this with me. i encourage anyone who's going through any life changes to find something productive to help you embrace the change and process it in a healthy manner. good luck!