I like to preoccupy myself with video games. Weird, I know. You don't usually hear about a 19-year-old girl that still plays video games. Well I do. Time management, puzzles, adventure, fashion; any video game genre you can think of I probably play it. Except for action, crime-y, and violent games. I don't do those. Anyways, I received a Nintendo DS when I was, maybe, 12 and I was obsessed with it. But as I got older I became less and less interested in it and one day I placed it somewhere and ultimately lost it in the depths of my childhood bedroom for all of eternity. So naturally, as I'm lying in my bed Snapchatting people, I think to myself, "Wow, I have this sudden urge to play Cooking Mama (major props if you know the game) on my DS." So I set out on a quest to find the device. I can't seem to find it anywhere, but as I'm searching and searching I find little trinkets and mementos from my childhood. Pictures, card games, birthday cards, my Video Now!

Though I do consider my apartment in San Diego home, I still consider my house in New Jersey home too. I've lived here since I was six and in that time frame have collected a ridiculous amount of "chotchkies" to the point where I realized I may have had a slight hoarding problem in my younger years.

Needless to say it was emotional. At one point I was holding a pack of Old Maid cards in one hand and my American Girl doll brush in the other, silently sobbing to myself and my mother knocked on the door. I quickly rushed to clean up my tears and made it look like I wasn't crying because I was too embarrassed of her finding out. But as I sit here writing this down for, potentially, the whole world to see, I'm realizing that that was unnecessary and I should've just continued with crying and holding my once-prized possessions while listening to Portugal The Man.

Seeing and finding these various items takes me back to the good, young, carefree days like when I would sit at my computer desktop and Instant Message my friends while listening to Sugar Ray or Pink on my Hit Clips. And days where I thought the most important thing in the world was trying to impress my weekly crush at the time, a snotty 13-year-old boy with baggy jeans and a tacky haircut. Then I look through my high school yearbook and see what I used to be like because I 100 percent have changed significantly from when I was a senior, even though it's only been two years. I used to think I wasn't smart enough or cool enough. I was such a jock and only started to think film was the right path for me my last year. I started to dwindle down my friends junior year after my dad died because I finally realized who was there for me and who wasn't. I actually went to my senior prom even though I didn't go to my junior prom. I applied to13 colleges and got accepted to all but three, one of them being my dream school. It was a major throwback and incredibly nostalgic.

I think the reason I was a hoarder was because I like to remember things. Every memory I have is in my childhood bedroom. All the secrets to my life. I've never changed my room or reorganized it. I've never painted my room. It's still the pale pink color from when my parents painted it when we moved in. It used to be an ugly lime green, yet I still felt the need to peel/chip off the paint because I was bored one night. I have stickers on the walls from when I was 8 and my photography from when I was 16. My TV is ancient and dusty. And my Mona Lisa Pig I painted is still at the head of my bed.

I guess I don't like change. When it comes to my childhood memories being contained in the one place I can truly call my escape, I definitely don't like change. I know when the day comes and my mom decides to put the house up for sale, it will be a sad one. I cherish so many things about this room. It's small and quaint, but filled with so much life.

And if you're wondering if I ever found my Nintendo DS, I didn't. I think my sister stole it from my room a couple years ago and it's somewhere in her pigsty.