Cleaning my old bedroom

Depending on the number of children in the household, the size of the house itself, frequency of parent re-location, and the neat-freak to sentimental ratio of the parent many people in my (our?) age group are faced with the task clearing out their childhood bedroom. Some of you out there have not had to truly face this yet. You may have grabbed out the occasional loved/needed/all-but-forgotten item over they years but the majority of the detritus of your childhood remains behind. For those of you who have not fully cleared out your childhood bedroom you will be surprised to learn that the earth does not open up and swallow all of your remaining adolescent belongings. The things that ‘went away’ for you some years ago are still sitting under the bed, in the back of the closet, and in shoe boxes on the shelf.

Since I come from a home with a low number of children, a large home, non-existent parent relocation over the past twenty years, and parents who rank high on the sentimental scale and low on the neat-freak scale; clearing out my old bedroom has been low priority since I abandoned it (and its remaining contents) some six or seven years ago. The dregs of my Elementary through High School years have not only remained, gathering dust, but any number of random items have been added. My room became the gathering place for pretty gift boxes too nice to throw away, ugly gifts that you will be asked about the moment you throw them away, old furniture that just needs a bit of something to be serviceable again or that is waiting for a new home elsewhere, and ancient paper work that must be kept just incase of an IRS auditor that wants to reach back thirty years.

When it comes to clearing out this mess you have two important choices: Enlist the help of parents, siblings or your significant other OR sort through everything on your own. For most everyone the choice probably looks obvious, but you will be surprised to learn that the choice you thing is obvious is not the one chosen by all of your peers. Both options have major pit falls.
Enlisting the help of others: Yes, the work load is lightened, but you are forgetting the humiliation factor. I can guarantee that if you have not totally emptied your childhood bedroom there are many items in there that you have forgotten about but would rather never see the light of day. Your mother, father, sister, brother, or significant other WILL find your secret porn stash, your books of angsty poetry or stories, your cds from your brief obsession with Boy-Bands, or the burn in the carpet from when you dropped that illicit High School cigarette. See what I mean? You forgot about those old demons lurking in your old room didn’t you? I can see the fleeting panic in your eyes as you plan on spending your ‘Christmas with the family’ locked in your old bedroom attempting to purge it of these things. Which brings us to…
Sorting through it on your own: Those of you who at first thought that getting help was the way to go have now (unless of course you were A. Some sort of bizarre “perfect” adolescent who has nothing to be embarrassed about left lurking OR B. some sort of bizarre compulsive adolescent who destroyed all such evidence during your formative years) come here to learn the pit falls of sorting through things yourself. The first BIG one is the size of the workload. There is more crap in your old bedroom than you remember. It doesn’t matter how neat or tidy a kid you were there is more stuff in there than you recall ever owning. The next big pit fall is the humiliation factor. “WAIT!” I hear you cry, “The humiliation factor was in Enlisting the help of others.” I am sorry to tell you that even alone you experience the humiliation factor. Adolescent you is there looking out from your twenty something eyes and is mortified beyond all reckoning. If you have lived your life with any kind of decency you have grown into just the kind of person your adolescent self admired (either openly or secretly), and seeing such an impressive and cool adult find, mock, destroy, and/or throw away all of those dreadfully important things (such as your secret porn stash, your books of angsty poetry or stories, your cds from your brief obsession with Boy-Bands, or the burn in the carpet from when you dropped that illicit High School cigarette) is awful.

Now there are those of you thinking that avoiding this little trip down memory lane is the way to go. Don’t wait too long! If you wait too long one of two things will happen. One or both of your parents will retire and decided to clear out the house. They will find these things and, depending on the sort of item it is, they will DISPLAY some of them. You don’t want THAT do you? The other option is far more horrifying. Your old bedroom will continue to gather dust and random items for many more years and then your CHILDREN WILL FIND THEM. They will find them and they will use them against you in arguments.

So get cleaning!