A lifetime of cleaning in college son’s bedroom
It’s amazing how some people react to having their kids move out
away to college. Some are tearful. Some worry a lot. Some are
depressed. Some are exhilarated.
A lifetime of cleaning in college son’s bedroom
It’s amazing how some people react to having their kids move out away to college. Some are tearful. Some worry a lot. Some are depressed. Some are exhilarated.
And then there’s me, who’s cleaning.
I don’t like to clean, really, but it’s become a necessity. Now that Hunter is safely tucked away in the dorms at UC Santa Cruz, I am finally doing what I have not done for years and years.
I got the carpets cleaned this week and came to the stunning realization that Hunter’s room is like the Black Lagoon without the creature living in it. It is a veritable swamp of school papers, old forgotten toys, Yu-gi-oh cards, science fiction books and Chapstick.
Yes, Chapstick. Hunter is one of those people who must have a tube of lip balm with him wherever he goes. And so, in the process of getting ready for the carpet cleaners and moving furniture and such, I found seven tubes of the stuff – most trashable, but two never used.
I sent him a text: “You have way too much stuff in your room.”
His reply: “Nah.”
My response: “Yeah, and it’s all going AWAY.”
I mean, really. Legos? Nerf guns? Hand puppets? All this and more was unearthed in the past two days. You can’t tell me that at age 18, he still plays with hand puppets. At least not when I’m around.
All of this made me realize, too, just how inadequate I am when it comes to housecleaning. I haven’t done any kind of deep cleaning in a very long time, and the reason for that is, well, most of the time it’s just not what I want to be doing.
Excavating all of Hunter’s clutter made me realize it had been eons since I had done anything but vacuum in his room. So now that he’s away at college, it’s time to dig in.
I guess I spent a lot of time not cleaning because we were always doing so much. Movies, family trips, get-togethers with McKenzie relatives, outings to San Francisco and on and on.
During the last few years, it was band competitions, science competitions, anime festivals and further assorted high school activities. It was definitely much more fun to plan that stuff than to dig the dust bunnies out from under the bed.
And yet I was amazed at how much had accumulated just in the last couple of years in Hunter’s room.
He has always been a collector of odd bits and pieces, and it seems to have increased exponentially of late. Plus since he had the bigger bedroom, a lot of the toys that both my boys played with in younger years ended up stored in Hunter’s bedroom.
And there it all still is.
So now I must deal with it as best I can. Some of it needs to go to the younger cousins who are still playing with Legos and hand puppets, and a great deal of it needs to be distributed to Goodwill and Salvation Army. Some, of course, will go in the garbage.
And no doubt I will pack up some things to keep. There are certain special items that Hunter will not want to part with, and there are other items I can’t bring myself to part with. Like the Disneyland pins we accumulated on one particular trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. Like the Pokemon cards he collected when he was in the second grade.
Unearthing memories – that’s the hardest part about all this.
