Hoarding At It’s Best (Or Worst)

Rachel- You requested a post on this topic. Here you go! I hope I don’t disappoint!

 

We’ve already discussed that I’m a bit of a hoarder. I have a hard time letting things go. This includes all things: furniture, books, pictures, a can of asparagus tips that I bought when I was curious but am now too scared to try, magazines (I’m getting better about this one- I usually only keep an issue about 3 months now), email, anything with any sort of sentimental value, shoes that I no longer wear or don’t fit properly, Rookie’s hair (this isn’t intentional… it just doesn’t go away), gift bags- even though I always wrap gifts, …should I keep going?

 

I think it’s fair to say that I’m also a hoarder of memories. Which is one reason I dove headfirst into blogging. Thanks to this blog, I will never, ever forget about the awful games I had to play for vision therapy. Although I’m not quite sure if that’s a memory I will want to revisit! That’s not the point though. The point is that I know I can reread it if I want to. This is the same reason I have kept all of my old birthday cards and graduation cards and wedding cards. This is why I have a box in my closet full of notes from high school friends. I like to know I can go back and revisit those memories when I want to. It’s comforting.

 

Of all of my hoarding tendencies, I don’t think my memory hoarding is too damaging. For the most part, it’s contained to a fairly small area. After all, its just a bunch on cards and notes. Words really. And words don’t take up too much space. I guess that depends on if we are measuring the volume or area… Because if we’re going by surface area, I’m in trouble.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my memory hoarding at it’s worst:

 

This is my old bedroom. It began in 4th grade when I splatter-painted my walls. It got worse in 5th grade when I started writing phone numbers on the wall in pencil. (Remember those days… when you had to know phone numbers to call people?!) I think 8th grade is when this idea gained momentum. I asked permission to draw this Forever Friends thing:

 

At which point all the “BFFs” drew their names. And, well, you know how BFF’s are really just BFForNow’s… and I couldn’t very well hurt the feelings of my new BFFs. So that’s when it got out of control.

Incase you were wondering, the reason the writing along the bottom is arched is because Rachel drew around the outline of my bed. Very creative, that girl! She definitely wins the award for prettiest graffiti! Joel does not. He apparently gave up after coloring in the “Jo”… Although I’m pretty sure the drawing of the man at the top was his self-portrait. Moving on…

Jennifer (or Jen Lynn in this instance) also has many posts. The flag and gibberish is by Michael, our German exchange student. And this (below)would be Lucy’s Sophomore Will. All inside jokes from our sophomore year. (After reading them, I seem to be on the outside of some of those jokes now.) She definitely won the award for most words. There are paragraphs from her all over the place.

Oh, and incase you’re wondering, here’s the ceiling:

 

Due to my feelings that everyone should have “artistic freedom” and use whatever tools necessary to make their mark, my mother now has quite an issue on her hands. Apparently nail polish, glitter paint, crayon, and Sharpie don’t cover well. I may be bias, but I think it’s worth it!