I usually try to clean my room about once every two weeks, but lately with summer and my general laziness towards manual labor of any kind, that schedule turned into once every two months. So I decided to take advantage of the Labor Day weekend and do some much needed really late spring cleaning. However, what started out as some dusting and sweeping my floor gradually turned into completely rearranging my room and cleaning out my closet, both literally and metaphorically. But the most surprising thing that I discovered wasn’t what was in my closet, but realizing just how cathartic cleaning out one’s room and getting rid of unnecessary items really is.

I’m sure everyone has had those moments where you just stood in the middle of your room or garage, looked around and thought, “How the hell do I have so much shit?” You’ve had that moment, right? It happens to me far too often. But do you actually do something about it or just shrug and add to the problem instead of subtracting from it? For me it’s almost always the latter, at least until last weekend.

After dusting my dresser, bookshelf, and nightstand, I stood in the doorway looking at my room and thought, “This isn’t very feng shui.” Okay, I don’t really know what feng shui is, but I know it has something to do with harmony and balance. At least I think it does. The point is my cluttered room had no harmony or balance. It was just a big mess of clothes, books, movies, computer, and little knick knacks that I’ve collected over the past 30 years of my life. And this was all before I even opened my closet to see that horror show of metaphorical skeletons.

I can’t remember where I read it, but I remember reading something online that basically said that having a cluttered and dirty living space only adds to stress levels. If there is one thing that a college senior does not need is unnecessary stress. With that in mind, I decided to change my living space.

The first thing that needed rearranging was my bed. Usually, it faces the door and the area where the TV would go, but I don’t have a TV, so why the hell was my bed even facing that way? So I moved it to the opposite side. Now it faces a wall, but what to do with that wall? I moved my dresser (after carefully emptying it of all my clothes) to face my closet. Now there was a huge space and so I filled it with my desk and my lamp in the corner so that it still illuminates the entire room. The bookshelf I then moved to be adjacent to my bed with my nightstand on the left side right by the door and entrance into my room. Now there is so much more space and my desk is by my window giving me a nice view of my backyard to greet me when I sit in front of my computer doing work. But the biggest change yet to come was cleaning out my closet.

After carefully arranging my room so that it has that certain je ne sais quoi, I decided to clean out the closet. However, once I slid open the doors and saw a hamper, an old radio, Star Trek model ships, ten hats that I never wore and three boxes full of God knows what, I quickly regretted my decision. But this needed to be done.

I opened up each box and discovered items that I had completely forgotten that I had. One box contained old essays, collectable magazines coinciding with each Star Wars Prequel release, and newspapers from September 11 and the Iraq War. You know, for posterity. Another box contained my old Star Wars and Star Trek action figures along with three small containers full of Pogs. Note to everyone: Pogs were the worst investment ever. The next box contained my old art portfolio from high school when I was forced to take two art classes. The art wasn’t bad per say, but it definitely wasn’t something that should go in the Louvre either. Lastly, I looked at my clothes. Why did I have so many clothes that I never wore? Seriously, I only wear the same five shirts and pants on repeat. How did I have so many clothes?

I was hit with a wave of nostalgia as I looked through all of these old memories from my life. I remember the adventures I used to have with my action figures, the games of Pog I used to play, the essays and stories I wrote and I was able to see how much my writing has improved (or gotten worse depending on who you ask), and I was sad to think that I should part with all of them. But there are some things that we should keep and some things that we just really don’t need that take up so much space. Making that decision is pretty hard, especially for someone like me who has trouble letting go of things, but it has to be done.

I took two trash bags and emptied out what wasn’t necessary, but kept the items that I wasn’t ready to part with. I think I made the right choice. Later that night I was in bed and looked at my somewhat new surroundings. I put my old Teddy Bear (that my grandfather had gotten me when I was born) on my nightstand right next to my Pogs and turned off the light. You know what? My room is less cluttered now and the Pogs do compliment the Teddy Bear perfectly. That’s feng shui, right?