Wednesday, October 30, 2019 // The Statement
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Wednesday, October 30, 2019 // The Statement
I
watched Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix
for all of three minutes before shutting it off. The self-
awareness crept like heat onto my neck — I knew I’d
never be that tidy. I’d never be “minimal.”
Marie Kondo and I are polar opposites. She is a known
advocate for getting rid of things that don’t “spark joy” and
led the social media millennial boom of minimalism and
organization. I, on the other hand, could make a case for each
and every pointless item in my attic bedroom, arguing that they
all spark some form of joy.
I have trouble letting go of things. I still have a palm sized,
plastic Japanese Mankei-Neko — those small plastic golden
cats that wave their arm — that my friend brought me back
from China when we were 13. It’s sat atop every single one
of my desks, always next to a flamingo jewelry holder for my
single pair of earrings, four boob-shaped mugs that I don’t use
for drinking, a collection of bookmarks, a collection of colored
pens from my coloring phase and a lip mask I’ll never put on.
I couldn’t imagine ever ridding myself of the golden cat or the
bookmarks. They feel like a part of me, in a strange way.
The things I’ve stored under my bed at home are even more
unnecessary. In the bursting clear tub I’ve tried my best to
contain and forget about, you’ll find a stuck together napkin
from a first date with a person I haven’t seen in a year. There’s
a flashlight on a tattered black rope from an eighth-grade
birthday party, and New Year’s Eve glasses from the years 2012-
2017, all ultimately dysfunctional, as they’re missing lenses.
I’ve kept every notebook I’ve ever written in, an instructional
pamphlet — written in Dutch — describing a dollhouse that I
found in the remains of a fire in my hometown, the ribbon from
a gift someone I sort of know gave me for my birthday, along
with every birthday card I’ve ever received, every friendship
bracelet I’ve ever made or taken off, photo booth pictures from
a mall that no longer exists with a person I haven’t spoken to
since 2008 and so much damn paper. You’ll find invitations,
take-out menus, a half-written poem, coupons from a place
I’ve only been to once, handwritten notes from my sixth-grade
crush, a movie ticket from the midnight showing of Hunger
Games, a 2010 Halloween card from my grandmother, tickets
to the American Idol World Tour in 2007 –– part of me wants to
just recycle it all, but part of me could never approach that blue
trash bin and let go.
My aversion to throwing away useless monuments becomes
emotionally destructive in my inability to discard ex-boyfriend’s
sweatshirts, written notes, dead flower stems and teddy bears.
During my freshman year of college, my mother texted me, “Is
it okay to get rid of the Christian Brothers Academy sweatshirt
and teddy bear from boyfriend #2?” The relationship lasted five
passionless months at age 16, and yet, at 19, I had some far-off
feeling that these objects, in fact, sparked enough joy to collect
dust in the back of my closet. I had dated other boys since that
lanky 16-year-old. All those things really did was take up space.
When I’m home, I covertly sit on my floor in my bedroom
and go through the boxes under my bed, peering through the
windows of my past. Rooting through a box of yearbooks from
middle school this summer, I came across a grammatically
incorrect “52 things I love about you” deck of cards from my
13-year-old first kiss. This happened over eight years ago,
and I don’t even have that kid’s phone number anymore. The
“you’re smile” as one of the 52 reasons seemed too wonderfully
romantic to throw away, but now, as I come across them as a
young adult, the sheer naivete and painful innocence of the
gesture is something I can’t part with. Senior year of high
school I tried to convince my 18-year-old fling to give me a
Clemson sweatshirt. He said no, which is for the best because
I’d probably still have it, rolled in a ball in the back of a drawer,
and I hate the color orange anyway.
Even when I move on, when months and years and feelings
pass, I can’t seem to part ways with all the insignificant
trinkets embedded in the gifted and borrowed objects from
my old flames. It’s almost as though I fear my memory will fail
me and I need reminders to dredge my mind and recover all
the sweetest things. That’s how half of me feels. But the other
half wonders. Was sloppily making out with someone on a
basement couch on Saturday nights when you were 16 one of
the sweetest things? I hope not. Does a fraternity T-shirt evoke
such passionate memories? No.
The common sense advice is that when you breakup you
immediately throw away or return their stuff and the gifts they
gave you. That’s what my best friend and mother have always
told me. So, why do I refuse to listen? Why do I leave myself
a reminder of an ex every time I look at my wrist, search my
closet for a shirt to wear or walk into my bedroom? And while
I’ve made the walk of shame to the same college boy’s house in
the afterglow of a breakup with a Trader Joe’s bag filled with
his T-shirts drenched, sneakily, in my perfume, the things I
don’t return I can’t seem to let go of. In recent days, I’ve decided
I’d like to know why I want to hold on.
U
-M psychology professor Stephanie D. Preston
has done extensive research regarding hoarding
and emotional attachment to objects and said in
an interview with The Michigan Daily, “research shows that
emotional memory is a reason many people have a lot of trouble
discarding things.” Specifically, when it comes to ex significant
others, she told me many people “imagine that part of the other
person is embodied in the item, therefore, throwing it away
would be some kind of violating to that person.”
We spoke for a few moments about hoarding disorder, the
clinical diagnosis for severe cases of hoarding. I kept thinking
about the TLC TV show “Hoarding: Buried Alive” and how
so many watch the show to be entertained by individuals
suffering from an intense mental illness. I’d be lying if I wasn’t
entertained by the show myself at one point or another. The bit
of information she shared that really pushed me to think more
about my own situation was when she said, “anxiety is greatly
correlated to hoarding of items in that it can exacerbate the
issue.”
She went on to explain that if one suffers from anxiety, they
could potentially worry that by discarding something, they’ve
made a terrible mistake. And as someone who’s been diagnosed
with generalized anxiety disorder since age seven, I wondered
if my attachment to my items stemmed from my fear that I’d
be making a mistake by getting rid of them. Perhaps, I’d regret
it temporarily, but in the long-run, I know in my head it isn’t
a mistake to throw away last year’s shriveled up Valentine’s
roses. My heart isn’t quick to catch up with the common sense
I know in my head. In fact, if the physical manifestation of
relationships gone awry weren’t around and those people not
as easy to recall, I’d probably forget about them all together.
So, what is it? Why do I feel the need to keep these things?
Is it my sentimentality or the strange feeling of a lover turned
stranger? Or my desire to keep a physical scrapbook of gifted
shot glasses and oversized sweatshirts? Why is it that when I’ve
moved on and happy with someone new, or alone (turn up the
Lizzo), do I still have old stuff taking up broken heart-shaped
holes in my life? I never wear any of their clothes, or use any of
the items — I’d be lying if I didn’t take shots out of the Texas shot
glass though — and barely think of the people they belong to. I
just like to know that it’s all still around. That the parts of me
that have grown up and grown past these experiences still exist
somewhere, even if it’s in the thread of a Maize Rage T-shirt.
That if I’m fighting to move forward, I still know what’s behind.
Last year, I struggled through a very hard breakup with
someone I loved very much. I’d returned a few of his favorite
shirts in the immediate aftermath last February, but he
mentioned he didn’t want the vast majority of what I had of his
back, save the yellow Bubba Gump T-shirt of course.
So here I am –– a pair of well-worn navy sweatpants, a
professional Greek life T-shirt of an organization to which I
no longer have a connection, a gifted bathrobe I adore, a pair
of boxers with a strange pattern I’d had for a year and a half,
and a few T-shirts with slogans that recalled moments which
were only ours. I also had a picture frame, an autumnal looking
bandana, a shoebox of handwritten notes and an apron from
Anthropolgie. All of these things are spread out on my small
floor as I pack up my apartment in Ann Arbor, before going
to New York for the summer. Emotion stung at my face, and
though we’d been through since February, we were still talking,
and I knew I could ask him what he’d done with the sweaters
and coffee shop T-shirts and belts and homemade poems I’d
given to him during our relationship. I didn’t.
I had three options:
1.
Throw it all out
2.
Refuse his month-old declaration that he wants
nothing back and drop it all off without warning
3.
Pack it in a box and deal with it in September
I went with option three. I knew I should’ve gone with option
one — saving the bathrobe and apron though, because, c’mon —
but I also knew that I was and am a keeper of objects that hold
meaning and metaphor and someone’s scent. Into the boxes
they went. I forgot about them quickly after the plane touched
down in New Jersey days later.
Four and a half months later, I arrived in Ann Arbor for my
fourth year. The distance and time between myself and my
beloved college town treated me well, and I was thrilled to be
back. I never say the words “over someone” because, as human
beings, we don’t get over anything –– we grow through times in
our life with people and places we no longer know. The anxiety
and melancholy of winter 2019 was far from me –– both literally
and emotionally. I felt newly fulfilled, excited and basking in
newness –– a new year, a new course load, new relationships, a
new bedroom. My heart was sore but freshly mended. I felt as
though the wave of our ending had swelled, crashed and settled
like foamy bubbles on the shore upon which I stood, feeling OK.
I’d grown through something and would always have more
growing to do.
I moved into Ann Arbor for the fourth, final time and
unpacking commenced. Box by box, my floor cluttered with my
winter boots and dusty decor and purple bedding and pillows
shaped like sloths. Then suddenly, in the mess of it all — navy
blue sweatpants, three T-shirts, and a photograph of herself
with another person, both of whom she no longer really knew. I
paused in a moment of nostalgia and pushed the items off to the
side. I left them in the corner of my room and moved forward
in my unpacking. Once I finished with all the boxes, I’d decide
what to do with them. These things didn’t really have a place in
my bedroom or my life anymore. When I finished, I revisited his
pile of things and wondered if I’d ever become less sentimental.
I stood, gazing at them, almost afraid to touch them. I thought
about writing a poem, I thought about hiding them, I thought
about burning them in my nonexistent fireplace, I thought
about asking if he wanted them back. I did none of those things,
except write the poem.
A few days later, I ran into the owner of these items on
campus. Neither of us said anything or exchanged any glances.
We had no bad blood and no hard feelings, it was just someone
I used to know, who used to know me. We acknowledged each
other briefly, and kept walking. An odd feeling really, a best
friend turned stranger –– a sentiment with an indescribable
aftertaste. I walked home from class that late September
morning, having passed him in the halls, knowing vaguely
what I had to do. It’s one thing to be nostalgic, it’s one thing to
be romantic, but it’s another entirely to be holding on to objects
that only truly prohibited me from ever living in the now.
I beelined for the corner of my room where everything of his
was balled in the corner looking like a sad, wilted pile of another
life. I scooped it all up and felt oddly at peace as I walked down
the sidewalk, the tower of everything that used to be, safe in my
arms. As I arrived at my destination, I knew I could turn back,
that I didn’t have to go through with this monumental moment.
But I didn’t need any of his stuff. I never needed anyone’s stuff
–– emotionally or physically. I honestly have plenty of my own.
Sometimes, we hold on so tight to something fighting to get
away, that our knuckles turn white.
This is what I thought as I stood adjacent to a dumpster on
the side of the road.
There was a group of men working at the dumpsters who
watched me, standing there, alone, with an armful of borrowed
objects, weighing my next move. They were waiting for me to do
what we all knew I was going to do. I was thinking about going
home when one of them called out “Do it girl! You got this!” and
with his declaration, I throttled the items over the side of the
dumpster and watched for a half-second as they sailed through
the air and landed with a satisfying thud in the midst of half-
empty beer cans, discarded mattresses and cardboard. For a
moment, it felt like nothing else was happening in the rest of
the world, like everything had stopped. And then, the group of
men across the gravel parking lot began to cheer. Like actually,
cheer. It’s as though they knew. I turned, now, empty handed,
and walked the same exact way I came, only this time, I felt
lighter.
I
n the Greek myth of Orepheus and Eurydice, Orepheus
is told he can lead Eurydice safely out of the underworld,
so long as he doesn’t look back to make sure she’s
behind him. If Orepheus looks back, Eurydice is stuck in the
underworld forever. In the end, Orepheus looks back and could
never move on from it. Like him, looking behind me in life, is
what’ll keep me rooted there, full of regret and nostalgia and
sentimentality and not moving fiercely forward.
If it’s a good memory I’ll remember it. If it mattered, I’ll
remember it. A pair of oversized sweatpants and an ugly
turquoise T-shirt won’t be what I’ll remember. I’ll remember a
bike ride to cupcakes in July and the firepit in the backyard of
their childhood home. I’ll remember their laugh until I forget
it. I’ll remember the way they fiddled with their glasses. I’ll
remember the first date and then, one day, I’ll only remember
the last one. I’ll remember senior prom. Maybe one day, I’ll
recover a photograph of the two of us at a dance in college and
think, “Remember them?” I will.
And it won’t be sad or painful or lonely. It’ll be the sweetest
things. The objects I couldn’t get rid of weren’t what sparked joy
–– the memories that were hanging off their threads did. What
I end up remembering of these people, if anything, in ten years
down the line, will have nothing to do with their old sweatshirt.
Marie Kondo, through her platform, urges us to separate from
unnecessary objects of our lives, not from our memories.
I must part ways with the things of my past, which formerly
hung to my belt loops and shoelaces. I honor what happened
and will continue to do the work to make space in my closet and
my mind for new stories. One day, there will be someone who’s
stuff will be my stuff too. It will all spark joy. And now, I remain,
open and cavernous, but not hollow. Ready for the kindling and
the flicker of a new fire.
BY ELI RALLO, ASSOCIATE STATEMENT EDITOR
My ex-boyfriend’s sweatpants don’t spark joy
PHOTOS BY DANYEL THARAKAN