Digging Through the Memories

My parents are putting the family house up for sale in April. Dad has been pestering me for months to clear out my old bedroom, so I've finally relented and started picking away at the piles of old stuff gathering dust in there.

Clearing out my room is not unlike an archaeological dig. I realized what packrat I was and still am to this day. I spent part of one afternoon sorting through reams of scribbled notes, receipts for any and every thing, old magazines, school textbooks, spare change in various currencies, more receipts, novels I've never read, electronic pocket games, Artona school photos never framed and did I mention I have shitloads of old receipts??

Excavating my room has been tiring as I attempt to sort out the trash from the gold. There is trash aplenty and the gold has come in the form of old creative writing assignments, some dating back to elementary school. I've also found various projects started up during my days as lonely little boy. There is my attempt at a video game magazine, with my first issue professional drafted on 3-hole lined paper, handwritten in ink of course. I was also pleasantly surprised to find the shooting script to my 2nd-year video production short, along with many cartoons I doodled in highschool which, sadly, I still understand and find amusing.

I went back on Sunday to finish off the dig. There's just so much junk. I was getting impatient with the whole process and picked up the pace, eschewing the separation of recyclables and garbage and just transferring everything straight into the garbage heap, paper-based or not. What did I find today? Income tax assessments, GST receipts, many more store receipts, ATM receipts, binders from highschool and university, loads of books and more fucking receipts. The fact is, in the years leading up to my finally moving away from home, I was probably utilising 10% of my bedroom. The other 90% was used to house all of this crap. It's shocking.

And yet, I found it hard to part with this stuff. Even as I tied up the bags and lowered my junk into its proper home, I couldn't help but grimace. If I hung on to these things, I would never, ever look at them again, let alone think about them.

So why did I want to keep it all?