maybe i'm an orange peel. . .

can we briefly discuss what an odd time period this is in a person's life? the really awkward switch from living at home to living on your own? the transition is a little too obvious and clunky for me.

i've gone from living in the same house since birth to living in five places in one year. i'm really not used to it. i'm not the kind of person who can easily flit from place to place either- i like to nest. i like to settle in. i like to shape spaces into something familiar. and on the minimalist to hoarder scale, i definitely lean heavily to the hoarder end of the spectrum. i attribute my 'collector' mentality mostly to my grandma weigel, whose aesthetic tastes infiltrated my mind in the early formative years and is now the reason i scour the aisles of every thrift store in my path. i'm trying to recreate the same vibe she had working in her house when i was younger. everything is very ornate or gaudy or old timey and it's everywhere. there are no bare surfaces. things overlap and it's a general sensory overload. i don't consciously seek to recreate this- it's just something that happens and i finally figured out why.

the other aspect of my stuff-having self is mostly caused by sentimentality, something i've learned from my mom. i have shoeboxes full of old birthday cards in my room and literally two suitcases full of notes i received from bored friends in high school study halls. i have hideous dolls i can't bear to part with because of their history. i think fondly of discovering my dad & aunt's old toys in the basement and decide to save my own, in the hopes that my hypothetical future children will have the same experience. old notebooks, calendars, planners get tucked away too, in case i ever want to know who i was or what i valued at specific stages of my life. having all of this stuff (for lack of a bettter word) makes it so difficult for me to just up & go to other places. it's more than just things that i own- it's things i've come to associate with very specific memories and ideas about identity.

i think the real issue here is that ever present tension between tradition and change. the comfort of the old and the excitement of the new. i like growing up. i like getting my own place, living in a new space, starting my own life. i don't like the idea of growing away from the things i love at home. i would like to be able to straddle both worlds and remain in both simultaneously but i don't know how feasible that is. even though i can always go home, it's not going to be the same.

i'm taking the furniture from my childhood bedroom to college with me, so i've spent the past week clearing everything out. i had to empty my desk, go through my toy box to make room for other things, and evaluate the worth of all the knick-knacks on my shelves. it was so much harder than i thought it would be. so many times i would pick something up and think "aww- my beanie babies! i should save these!" but for what? why would I ever need my beanie babies? it's not like i plan on playing with them. or displaying them. and i cant save every toy i've ever gotten but giving it away seems horrible too. then i can't ever have it back, and what if i want it back?

i finally finished the job today and as i was sitting on the floor, stuffing the last bits into tupperware bins, my mom came in to inspect. i told her how weird it felt to be getting rid of stuff in the room. "well, we're getting new furniture to put in here." i told her it wouldn't be the same. and it's not like she's going to fill a dresser with all my old stuff. what would the point of that be? we're repainting my room too which is totally fine- it's currently a vibrant shade of lime green that 14 year old caitlin thought was pretty sweet. but what about the stuff on my walls? my goofy postcards and breakfast club poster? the fence post i painted? the pictures my friends drew for me in high school? if we paint the room, it's not like we're going to hang that stuff back up. "of course we will! it'll still be your room!" but it won't. this will still be my home, but this won't be my room. it's a terrible thing to say and a terrible thing to realize but it's true. remnants of my belongings will still be here but it won't be my space anymore. not just because of the paint change and the new furniture but because i won't ever be back here for good. i think i hurt my mom's feelings when i told her it wouldn't be my room anymore. i want it to be my room. it's such a nice room and this is such a nice home and it would be so comfortable to just stay here. but i can't live here forever. the desire to have the past and the future at the same time, to live in and own both, results in a stomachache at present.

in other news: i found four glue guns and a pack of un-opened men's boxer briefs while cleaning my room.