It's been my (slow-moving) project this summer to thoroughly clean my room. Except for summers while I'm still in college I may never live here full time again, but I don't know how soon I'm going to have to think about really moving out, so I figure I should start sorting out 19 years' detritus while I have the time. I have a lot of things I don't need. My main goal of cleaning is to get rid of paper (I have homework from fourth grade on my floor), books I don't want, clothes I don't wear, and Weird Stuff. Weird Stuff is a whole category on its own, full of the totally random inexplicable stuff I, in my infinite pack-rattery, have kept. My mother and I entertained brief notions of starting a blog where we post photos of the Weird Stuff we find in our house. Like the bizarre goo in a tub that came from some French magazine (the label on the goo is in French), which is sitting on the bookshelf by my chair. Some of it's pretty interesting, though, like this giant eraser.
Part of the problem with being someone who crafts is that everything has potential. You look at an empty paper towel roll and think,
that has potential, I could make something out of that. And then at some point, six years later, you have to admit that you're never going to do anything with it.
My theory of cleaning is that the mess accumulated in layers, so it's okay to clean it in layers as well. I get to the most recent paper first, and recycle what I don't want, and then the stuff I'm keeping winds up in a new stack on the floor. And the next time I clean I go through the same stack again, and decide half the things I thought I might need are totally unnecessary. Yesterday I organized my ribbons and jewellery-making supplies, which I've been needing to do for ages. And I'm already planning to go through it all again, and do my second layer of organization.
It feels good to be a little more organized.
