Clearing My Mind, Starting With My Room.
By: Abigail Cairns
Tags: Everyday Life, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Cleaning

Clearing My Mind, Starting With My Room.

Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash

Since I’ve moved to Grand Rapids (that was 4-almost-5 years ago) I haven’t really had my own room. In these 4-to-5 years I’ve slept on a mat that was on the floor, then upgraded to cot with a mat on top and then finally to an actual bed. The first night I slept on the bed was wonderful because it was mine. (And because it was off the floor and not uncomfortable like the cot!)

At this point I shared a small room with one of my sisters and it was a complete mess! There were dirty clothes everywhere along with phone chargers and headphones scattered along the bedroom floor. There was a tiny, black, Ikea desk sitting against the wall that had accumulated 2 monitors, a keyboard, 2 speakers, a mouse (the gadget, not the rodent!), along with many empty water bottles and dirty dishes. We didn’t have any dressers to put our clothes in, so we had to use plastic shelving units.

So because we had 2 beds, a desk and shelving units to hold our clothes; we barely had space. And when we went into quarantine, keeping the house clean was a tough job by itself (because I couldn’t get any help), so I gave up on my room. I pushed it off to the back of my mind saying, “I’ll get to it when I can.”

Yesterday my sister and I moved to a different room, a much bigger room; we decided to obviously split the room in half. We were able to fit all of our clothes, our beds and a couple of the shelving units and still have a ton of room leftover. Afterwards, we went to Goodwill and picked out a desk and chair for me. Getting it up the stairs was hard but doable. My sister had gone out later and got herself a new desk; to replace the small desk she had left in the old room for our brother to have.

Now that we got all of the stuff out of the old room, I could finally see the mess that I’ve been neglecting for a very long time. There’s empty water bottles, dirty socks and underwear, and the atrociously thick layers of dust and dirt was appalling! When I saw the mess I couldn’t help but feel ashamed that I was living in such filth.

Today it is my goal to attack this mess of mine so my brother could finally move into the room. Ever since Sunday night, all I could think about was cleaning my mess and then I realized what my new room stands for as well as the old room.

My new room (or at least my side of it) represents my mind, my world; kind of like a projector of my mental health. Now that I’ve really gotten my life on track (eating healthy, getting up and staying up, doing my chores, being a good sibling and daughter, keeping good hygiene, etc.), it’s a lot cleaner and more spacious. The old room shows the old me and what an absolute mess I was but not without improvement.

I wish school taught me the importance of keeping your bedroom clean before I graduated high school. (Along with other things that I’ve learned since I graduated almost 5 months ago!)

Yes, some say to clean your room but I don’t think they truly understand the meaning behind those simple words.

P.S. My parents said they’re just glad it’s a bunch of empty water bottles and not empty liquor bottles.

So I guess it could be worse…