I am constantly running out of room. Whether it be on my bookshelf (just bought a new one to fix that problem), my closet (sadly, I can't buy a new one of those), my backpack, or my mind, it fills to capacity more often than I'd like. I am certainly a self-proclaimed hoarder, though I proudly state that I am nowhere near the level of hoarding that those featured on "Hoarding: Buried Alive" are at. Even so, I hold on to so many things that I really don't need to keep.
The question of all this is: why? Why do I insist on keeping the junk that slowly takes over my closet, or under my bed, or in the drawers of my desk or nightstand? Sentimental value? Possibly. Laziness? Another likely answer. In reality, I don't know why I insist on keeping the copious amounts of things that I know I don't need. And I do really try and get rid of it every now and then.
For example, I clean out my closet twice a year, once in the summer, once in the winter. I go through each side of my closet and toss clothes that I know I have not worn in over a year and will not wear again in the next year into a sloppy pile on the floor and then transfer them to a bag that will eventually be driven to my grade school/church and shoved into the yellow donation bin (which is convincingly located next to the recycling bins) and say goodbye forever.
The process of getting rid of clothes that I don't wear feels good, but I always have apprehensions about doing it. I just don't want to regret getting rid of that unfortunate sequined tank top that I haven't worn in two years. However, I have not once regretted getting rid of anything. Maybe it's that whole out of sight, out of mind thing or maybe it's just the fact that these material things that I want to hold on to don't mean or matter nearly as much as I believe they do.
I have the same issue with all the random junk that fills the drawers of my nightstand, my desk, and under my bed. And when I say random junk, I truly mean random junk. I did recently (as in within the last two years) clean out my nightstand drawers. I got rid of the ten or more bouncy balls that were floating around in there, the cords to a camera that broke over five years ago, the empty photo albums, the instructions to things I no longer owned, and the train whistle (no... wait... I kept that). And do I miss any of these things? No, no I do not. Yet, I continue to let these random things fill hidden sections of my room and my life, just to sit there and lie in wait for the day that I just might possibly need them. Like, I totally might need those cheap, child-sized, pink tinted, round glasses purchased when I was in third grade from Party City.
Many of the random things I keep, I keep for potentially Halloween costumes, which the guest room closet of my house is full of, even though I didn't even dress up this year. I keep the code to retrieve my AP test scores on the off, off chance I have to prove that I did indeed get a 5 on my AP psych test (which, by this point, who cares?). I have an old mini video camera that I keep in case I need to shoot a low res movie with something other than my phone. I keep books that I've purchased that I quite possibly will never read again (though, some are kept for future children and the like).
I keep things I don't need, like everyone else. I keep old receipts that don't matter, and worksheets that I don't need, and trinkets that lost their sentimentality years ago. However, I do try every once and a while to clean and to cleanse. I rarely look back and regret this. I do this to stay sane and to stay organized (because while I do have a lot of unnecessary junk, that unnecessary junk is extremely organized).
I believe that more than half of the things I own mean literally nothing to me, and some might agree or disagree about their own possessions, but I know for a fact that that is true for me. I also believe that this is okay as long as I don't let it take over my life. I am not what I own, I am what I do with it.
