Another room falls to the cleaning frenzy

After a week of much needed vacation, followed by an unwelcome, but probably also needed in some weird way, bout with a stomach flu, I got back to cleaning out.  This time it was my daughter's room - that scary teenage place behind a door that's been closed since she left for camp.  The first thing I had to do was open the door.  This was not the mental or emotional exercise you might expect.  I actually had to shove the door against the pile of old notebooks, laundry and who-knows-what-else on the floor until it opened wide enough for me to get in.  That accomplished, the next challenge was deciding where to begin.

It took me ten hours and four very large garbage bags, but the bedroom looks like a bedroom now.  The bed is made.  The closet doors and dresser drawers close.  From the bottom of a pile of what I suspect were clean clothes, I recovered three pairs of my socks, and a pair of pants which are a bit too big for me and therefore would fall down around my daughter's ankles if she actually tried to wear them.  I spent a few minutes contemplating why I hadn't missed them sooner.

It is always difficult for me to decide what goes and what stays in her room.  I know she has memories attached to some things, including many I am not aware of.  She also hoards things just to have them.  I could tell, by how thick the layer of dust was, how long it had been since she'd touched some things, yet I felt sad adding them to the garbage bag.  These things represent a childhood that is rapidly coming to an end. 

I tossed cotton candy pink lip gloss and sparkly silver eye shadow.  These remnants of playing dress-up have been replaced by black eyeliner and lipsticks in more sophisticated colors.  Into the bag went old stuffed animals and leftover accessories for dolls that have already been passed to younger cousins.  In one drawer I found her cassette walkman, which hasn't seen the light of day since the iPod was invented. 

I wasn't heartless.  There is a row of stuffed animals smiling down from the shelf in the closet.  I resisted flipping through the various journals I came across, and tucked them into the drawer next to her bed with a few pens, so they'd be ready when the first boy breaks her heart.  I didn't remove a single book from her room, instead finding storage for them all in a trunk that used to house beanie babies and crayons.  Letting go of books is a difficulty we share.  We will have to discuss the book from the school library, though.  I believe it's a bit overdue.

When I was finished, I flopped onto her bed and watched a swallowtail flit from flower to flower in the butterfly garden outside her window.  The stale air that had been trapped behind the closed door was moving out, replaced by a breeze blowing in the open windows.  The room smelled fresher, felt more open, and looked brighter.  I know she won't appreciate it when she comes home, and will probably have it messy again in a few days, but for the next two weeks I get to enjoy looking at it.  And maybe, just maybe, she will make her bed once or twice, now that she can see it.