Saint Ann's High School Literary Magazine

Hoarding or Preserving?

‘Clean room’ is an item constantly sitting on my to-do list. No matter how many times I try to organize papers, shelve old books, and fold away clothes, I still always feel as if my room is in a perpetual state of disarray. Whenever I tidy up my room, I do ‘surface-level’ cleaning; I stack books lying on my armchair, throw away stray clothing tags and sheets of paper, rearrange little boxes and bottles on my small desk—but no matter what I do the sheer number of objects in my room leaves me anxious. My bookshelf is filled with books I read in English anywhere from 3rd grade (A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver) to 7th grade (Lord of the Flies). Underneath my bed, I have boxes and boxes of preschool projects and finger puppets and old toys. The shelf built into my wall from floor to ceiling is packed to the brim with things that I, for the most part, have not touched in years—the top shelf is more preschool projects, below that two shelves of German children’s books, below that a shelf containing empty boxes that I’ve accumulated from gifts over the past six or more years. In my closet, I have a shelf devoted completely to ‘sentimental clothing’—old shirts that are much too small on me now but which I used to love so I feel the need to hold on to. My bathroom, too, is filled with countless gifts of shampoo and lip glosses and bath bombs and face masks, and I have an entire drawer below my sink devoted solely to hotel soap samples and body bars, including some from when I was eight years old.

Despite all the items that are somehow packed into this room, at first glance, I would say my room actually seems quite neat compared to others. I don’t leave clothes scattered on the floor, I make my bed usually, and most of these random old objects are tucked away somehow or other into a corner or a shelf. It’s outdated for sure—I sleep in a bunk bed, left over from the days when I still shared a room with my brother, old enough that both my older sisters used to sleep in it before me. My armchair is old and brown, stationed imposingly in a corner of my room. I have a small glass desk on one side of my room and a large brown shoe cabinet on the other, both of whose only purposes are as surfaces for any knick knacks that I bring into my room but don’t have the energy to properly tuck away. I often complain about the lack of any new furniture in my room—even my large yellow bookshelf is a hand-me-down—in reality, however, neither of my parents are opposed to me ordering new furniture, as they tell me every time I begin complaining about wanting a nicer desk or a normal bed. If I wanted to, I could go onto Wayfair or Overstock right now and order myself a new set of furniture. But whenever my parents suggest this, I’m hesitant. Ordering furniture means having to clear up all the old things lying on my current ‘desk’, having to spend time moving all my current furniture, and heaving a new bed and desk up three flights of stairs to my room. This is the reason I give my parents to explain why I’m so 147