I need to preface this by saying that hoarding is not good, and if it's a problem that you face, it's important to consult a mental health professional.

When I came to college, every listicle, blog post, and article about common freshman mistakes said not to bring my entire life from back home with me. I was incredibly conscious of how much I was buying and packing, and I revolted against my mother's well-intentioned suggestions to bring even more random "just in case" supplies. I now regret that, at least in part.

I've always loved the clutter, at least a little. I read Inkheart as a kid and wished that I had their house, cluttered with papers and books. Minimalism is a good aesthetic. It's valuable and definitely keeps your spaces and mind clean. But to me, clutter screams passion.

I think there's something to be gained from cherishing things, even if it's sometimes materialistic. It means that I can line my windowsill with dinosaurs that my friends have given me and remember our painfully cringey middle school years. I can water my cactus and pretend that it's equivalent to holding real responsibility. I can pick a random novel from the mini library of books on my desk and read a chapter before giving up.

To me, it means expression. It means finding out who you are and how you define yourselves in a world filled with strange and exciting things.

My roommate came from Korea, so she didn't pack that much either. We now dedicate ourselves to making our new home more homely, which means that my sister's old keyboard now sits directly in the middle of our room for us to crash into in the middle of the night. We tried string lights, and we failed pretty massively. It's slow-going.

I think for two barely-adults who are massively out of their depths, there's not that much of a benefit in stark, compact neatness. It feels like there's nothing there for us to hold onto. Our dorms are meant to be our safe havens, somewhere where we can come back to after a horrible day and let it all out.

We need the sentiment that clutter brings because it means that we're beginning to love our space.