If you're anything like me you're childhood room back home is a mess of who knows what. I'm only home for a few weeks out of the year and never have the motivation to go through all my old stuff and clean it out. So here's a list of random things we can all still unfortunately find in out childhood homes.
1. Creepy Old Dolls
I guarantee there's at least ten porcelain dolls sitting in a trunk in the spare room of my house. It seemed to be a trend of the 90's/early 2000's for aunts and grandmas to give you porcelain dolls for birthday gifts. I know I thought they were cool back in the day, but I truly have no idea what I did with them because they were near impossible to play with. Once I reached the age where I knew they were the stars of many a horror movie they got put away never to be seen again.
2. Your Old Retainer
If you were lucky enough to have braces as a kid, you know the struggle of finally getting them off only to be told that you should probably wear a retainer for the rest of eternity to keep your teeth straight. I still have my clear ones sitting in their case on my bedside table even though I haven't worn them since seventh grade and they're probably disgusting at this point.
3. Elementary School Artwork
I would make the bold claim that I produced some of the worst artwork in the history of my elementary school. I was real bad, but my mom didn't want to ruin my self esteem at the age of six so she still hung them up around the house and I know we still have a box of all my brother and I's sad creations sitting the the basement somewhere.
4. Trophies
Everyone always complains about how millennials are so self-centered because we got a million participation trophies as kids, when in reality I played so many sports and got so many medals and trophies that they were basically all meaningless and just sat on the shelf covered in dust.
5. An Embarrassing Diary
I had nothing dramatic or secretive enough for my ten year old self to write anything down in a diary, especially one that came with a lock and key. And yet they still exist and I cringe anytime I find one a read a little. This Thanksgiving I'm thankful that my handwriting was so bad that most if it is illegible.
6. A Collection of Something Useless
Whether it was coins, stamps, seashells, or rocks every kid thought it was cool to have a collection of something. My idea of collecting seashells was literally just picking up broken pieces on the beach on family vacations and bringing them home in a plastic bag.
7. The Book on Puberty That Literally Every Girl Had
This is not an exaggeration, every single one of my friends had this book given to them by their mother because she was too uncomfortable to have the talk with them. Pretty sure I flipped through it and then hid it in my closet so I wouldn't have to think about it.
8. Birthday Cards
Even as a kid I never knew what to do with these. I'd read the generic note, take the money out, and then just put the card in my desk because it felt rude to throw it out. Is there a time limit on how long you have to keep cards to be polite? A month? A year? Ten years? Either way I'm covered.
9. Yearbooks
Will I ever have the need to lookup my third grade class in the yearbook? No, but can I look up anyone in the entire school from my years kindergarten through eighth grade? Of course, because they're all still sitting in a drawer in my room, slightly damaged though, I definitely remember my friends and I circling people we had crushed on and crossing out people we didn't like. Fourth grade was definitley my bitchiest year.
10. Stuffed Animals
I would've included these under collections of useless things but my seven year old self would've been too offended. I feel like playing with stuffed animals 24/7 as a kid was the reason I wanted to be a vet in kindergarten up until I realized that I would probably both vomit and cry at the sight of that many animals in pain.
I would like to say this inspired me to clean my room and rid my parents of all this garbage, but in reality the thought of going through all of this and being reminded of what an embarrassment I was as a child makes me nauseous. Better luck next Thanksgiving break!