You heard me right. I am now minus 100 of my belongings. And I don’t think my room has been this clean and organized since–okay, well, never. I’ve never been clean and organized.
It feels a little like this:
Okay, just kidding. That’s not my room. But I’m surprised I have anything left. I had a lot more stuff than I thought.
I got a bit stir crazy while I was sick and started shuffling around my room, still cluttered with loads of stuff I have no space for, piling up things that I thought I could do without. I started with my bookshelf, de-shelving outdated web development books, fiction novels I’d never read, and old college anthologies I was sure I’d touch again and never found the time. I moved on to my closet and started plucking dresses and sweaters from hangers. I sorted through an unnecessary collection of scarves. Perched on the edge of my bed, I counted each book and article of clothing and realized that I’d already nearly surpassed my 25 object goal, and hadn’t even touched the rest of my room.
…Could I…could I actually make it 50?
I sure did. Then 85. Then 100! I got a bit more scrupulous and pulled about 15 more articles of clothing, cleaned out my jewelry, removed all the useless and broken technology from my desk drawers. I tossed the scale that that broke but that I still stepped on periodically to see if it magically started working again. I finally threw out the batch of business cards that still had the wrong job title printed above the wrong office address.
“Why do I keep these things?” Was the question du jour. Seriously. Am I the only one that keeps literally over a hundred things that she really has absolutely no foreseeable use for?
Here’s the pile, 85 objects in. I didn’t get a photo of the whole 100, because I boxed everything up before I finished collecting things. But here’s the final tally:
- 18 books
- 6 dvds
- 1 scarf
- 4 Dresses
- 18 shirts
- 5 jackets
- 7 pairs of pants
- 1 skirt
- 10 pieces of jewelry
- 6 pairs of shoes
- 2 bags
- My Nook E-Reader
- A photo holder
- Old business cards
- A stuffed animal
- Pack of pastels
- Pack of colored pencils
- Resistance Band
- An old wallet
- Bathroom Scale
- A pair of false eyelashes
- Contact case holder
- A toy
- Tabletop S’mores Kit
- Framed Stock Photo
- Straightening Iron
- Broken Blow Dryer
- Decorative Pillow
- 5 Coffee Mugs
Phew!
I ended up taking my stuff to a few second-hand stores and made just over 50 dollars for what they would take, donated the rest of the clothes toward Project Heartbeat (through Buffalo Exchange) and the non-clothes to Goodwill. The extra cash was nice, but seeing as that went directly toward paying bills…the greater gift was coming home to a room I felt I could actually live in. Hasn’t been that way since I moved in! Better late than never, eh?
Related articles
- Keep Toss Donate Sell (bloomfieldroad.com)
- Fall Cleaning: Cashing in Instead of Throwing Out (thevagrinda.wordpress.com)
- 5 Basic Tips for Decluttering Your Closet (apartmenttherapy.com)
