I was a pretty sloppy teenager.

Not in a really gross way; my room was usually cluttered with papers, books, comics, and other things that I was working on at one point or another. It was a continuation of my elementary school days when my classroom desk would always be one of the messiest in the room. Looking back, it was all probably some sort of symptom of my ADHD that went undiagnosed until the middle of last year. As an adult, I’m not too much better. My teacher desk is a disaster area most of the time and I have “work areas” at the house that get cluttered.

In my mind, it’s organized chaos, although that’s probably just a convenient excuse.

Back in August, my kid left for college. When I returned home, I began the process of deep cleaning their room. I’m not going to get into it or embarrass them, but I will say that it took three days and featured me on my hands and knees vacuuming up dust with the hose attachment. Since they left for the second semester, I’ve also cleaned up their workspace in the basement that they use for model painting. And yes, I know that I should probably make them do it, but there comes a point where you get a little too fed up with all of it and take it into your own hands.

But back to the stuff.

I let go of most of my childhood toys when I was in my teens. I remember one weekend where I had just about all of them in a huge pile in my basement and sorted through them. Some of them went to neighborhood kids who my had played with them whenever my parents watched them. Others went to a church sale. And the ones that were in very bad shape were thrown in the garbage. I don’t think even noticed they were gone until I was in college and my friends and I got a huge childhood nostalgia hit for the Star Wars trilogy. When eBay hit big in the early 2000s (back when you could sell things at a decent price), I’d look up toys that I wanted but never had or considered re-buying stuff that I remember liking.

Thankfully, aside from comics or books, apartment living limited the space I had for those toys. With a house, I definitely have space, but I also raised a child and their stuff almost immediately overwhelmed mine.

When they were little, we did a huge purge of baby and little kid toys. I remember asking if it was okay that we were selling or donating them and this earnest 8-year-old voice said, “Yes. I like giving back.” So other kids were able to play with the toys that sat collecting dust. And, of course, new toys came along and took their place.

As the years went on, more stuff accumulated, and I noticed the same collecting mentality that I’d had back then. And now we’ve got tons of Legos, board games, books, collectibles, and model painting material in the house. It’s not like there were piles and piles that made rooms inaccessible (unless you counted all the crap my kid had on the floor by their bedroom door that made it tough to open at times), but it was enough to make me want to take action.

Here’s where I admit that I felt a little guilty as I got started. There was so much stuff that I’m sure had a story or had a reason behind keeping it and I could hear the conversations and felt like I would be hurting feelings. When you step away, it looks like the dumbest thought, but who am I to step away? I overthink everything. I don’t want to hurt my kid and I don’t want to perpetuate the generational “my parents threw out my stuff” narrative.

I started with the true garbage–old notebooks, SAT prep books, and other leftover school stuff. Then, I moved onto the stuff that would be noticed if it were gone. I sent pictures of those items with the text “Let me know what you want to keep.” And there was no drama or even whining.

Right now, there are several bags of books and DVDs in my dining room waiting for the library donation bin, and I’m looking at some remaining toys to see if a local consignment shop might want them. After that, I’ll take a look at what is left and see if there’s a better way to organize it all.

I’m tempted to finish this blog post with something sappy and cliche about childhood and how it’s the memories and not the stuff, but I have to be honest, writing this blog post has been tough because I’m not exactly finding any insight. I guess I’ve long since accepted that my kid grew up and cultivating an adult relationship with them is going to be more important than treating them like a child. So many of us in my generation are striving for healthy adult relationships with our parents and that’s been proving tough to navigate in the currrent socio-political climate.

Funny enough, that makes decluttering the older stuff easier.