Junk

I did some sort of spring cleaning today.

Spurred by the lack of space in this room I share with my sisters, I decided it was high time I cleaned out the old and bulky desks/cabinets/drawers so I can finally purchase a decent shelf for my ever growing collection of books.

Armed with ginormous plastic bags and gloves (it's not an affectation -- I have skin asthma and contact with dust will lead to itchy, itchy blotches on my skin), I started with a particularly gruesome desk containing my old stuff.

I guess I never really bothered to clean out that desk since forever, seeing how I found a bunch of things from my high school days.  Yes, I'm horrible.  I don't really "clean" stuff out, I just stash them away and hope to forget about them.  

I found class cards (of irregular classmates, possibly left with me by professors for safekeeping), test papers, school notes, receipts, pimple creams that never worked, lip balms, hair clips, coins and a bunch of other pointless stuff.  I found old cards, notes from friends, fifty bucks, cheesy attempts at fiction, IDs, boarding passes and pens that no longer write.

I found pictures and memories, stuff I'd stashed away into the very recesses of my mind.  

It's not easy cleaning out a decade of my life, every single bit reminding me of something or someone.  It's junk, true, coated in dust and grime, but it's junk that holds memories past, things that once meant something to me.  

I must be getting old; even cleaning gets me sentimental.