Stuff

When I came home two weeks ago, I was immediately overwhelmed with the amount of things in my room.

I threw out a lot when I left my old apartment - books, clothes, bedding, the crap on my balcony that was left from previous teachers that none of the Japanese staff at my school felt they needed to deal with - but I still managed to send home five decent-sized boxes. It was a task that took two months.

To organize my room in Hawaii is going to take that long or longer.

Yeah, it's a freaking mess. I have so far received four of the five big boxes I sent myself. They aren't as big as I remember them to be. I ripped open the two I got today and was like WOOT CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST! WHAT DID I SEND MYSELF??? I also found that everything has a funny, gasoline-like stench! I managed to separate colors and whites and delicates but didn't quite make it to washing it all. The first two boxes didn't stink, I put everything away just fine. Ugh.


Before the postman attacked me with my stuff, I did manage to give away a box overflowing with old clothes. I threw out at least a dozen bottles of grody nail polish and all my old make-up. I got rid of every little maybe-one-day-I'll wear/use/need-it thing I could. I'M GETTING THERE OKAY IT'S A PROCESS.

I have a bunch of mini-projects under the big umbrella goal of ORGANIZATION.

• WASH OR STEAM EVERYTHING GOODNESS IT SMELLS.
• Burn and get rid of all the CDs I can bear to part with right now.
• Put all my trinkets and doo-dads in one place so I can give them away to friends easily.

The half you can see - my stuff.
The half you can't see - mom's stuff.

I can't throw out everything because a portion of it belongs to my parents, who used my empty closet space for their belongings. I have no plans set in stone for living in Hawaii or moving to colder climates, so getting rid of winter clothes might be a bad idea. I did leave with most of my big dresser empty (a pleasant surprise) and there are a lot of half-empty containers in my closet.

BUT OMG I'M SO READY TO GET RID OF HALF THIS CRAP AND NOT THINK TWICE ABOUT IT.

My third box of GET THIS CRAP OUT OF HERE items.

Seriously I have to steam or hand wash all those scarves
because they smell like disgusting container ship EW.

Doing all of this has forced me to examine how I acquired all of it and the attitude I have toward material things.

I thought I did a pretty good job in Japan about not buying useless things. I tried to ask myself the following:

DO YOU NEED THIS?

WILL YOU USE/WEAR IT? (If you'll wear it, HOW MANY OUTFITS CAN YOU MAKE WITH IT? WILL YOU STILL WEAR IT IN 3 MONTHS? 6 MONTHS? A YEAR?)

DO YOU HAVE SOMEWHERE TO PUT IT?

DO THE ANSWERS TO THE PREVIOUS QUESTIONS JUSTIFY THE COST?

BONUSES: WILL YOU HAVE TO REPLACE IT? WOULD BUYING A MORE EXPENSIVE VERSION BE BETTER IN THE LONG RUN?

I should have started asking myself these questions a long time ago! Then I wouldn't have to get rid of so much JUNK now because I wouldn't have bought it in the first place ughhh.

I do feel bad about throwing things out that were given to me as gifts. Screw whatever I bought when I wanted to be stupid with my money, but presents that people took time to pick out for me or they just had to buy it for me when they saw it or whatever... that's hard. Photos are hard to throw out as well, but I haaaaaaaaate trying to organize photo albums bleh.

In other news, I applied for a real job and I'm just kinda waiting around for that. I'll be cleaning if you need me.