I can't throw it away!

A couple of days ago, I started the process of cleaning my room. I guess you can say that it's an organized mess...
My room was filled with objects and piles of papers that I hadn't looked at in years, and as I threw them away, I found myself saving a substantial amount.

Anyone else like this?

Do you find yourself saving a lot of stuff, or are you the type that is able to throw everything away? Because who needs ALL of the drawings baby has done throughout the years, right?

What are some of the things, if any, that you have saved throughout the years? Is there a certain amount of time that passes by before you let things go?

With me, I find myself throwing more things away as each year passes. It just gets easier. Some of the things I've kept so far include a little miniature piano a friend gave me in eighth grade, a couple of stories I wrote in high school, and pretty much everything from college...
What about you?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Oh dear god. I still have pogs from 2nd grade and a complete collection of Pokemon cards from the first booster sets as well as their wrappers (don't ask). I'm a sophomore in college.

I can't part with them for some odd reason.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Oh dear god. I still have pogs from 2nd grade and a complete collection of Pokemon cards from the first booster sets as well as their wrappers (don't ask). I'm a sophomore in college.

I can't part with them for some odd reason.

Hah, I do too! I have one of those old drawstring bags full of pogs, and I found a couple decks of Pokemon cards the other day. They're all originals too, I stopped buying them after the first gen, I think.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Lol! I have a small drawer full of pogs and slammers. Big, heavy ones. The best ones are the holographic Slugs pogs.

How ya doing, buddy?

I used to keep all the magazines I subscribed to, but eventually they started taking up so much space that I had to toss them. I've gotten into the habit of reading them and throwing them out when the next one comes in.

I tend to be a bit sentimental... there are some cards my mom sent me while I was at college that I dont think I'll ever be able to get rid of. A bunch of little knick-knacks have been saved up. And for some reason, god only knows why, but I cant bring myself to throw away a notebook that passed between a friend and I in high school. We had this 'comic' where we would fill one page and pass it on to the other person, and that person would continue the story. But we're both TERRIBLE at drawing, so the characters were stick figures with differently detailed heads. Its SO BAD, but I cant bring myself to throw it away!

I was speaking idiomatically.

My mother is a compulsive cleaner who will throw anything away if it is not in use the moment she sees it. As such, most of the toys I had as a child exist in some landfill. Other items I had, like posters and books have disappeared for good too. Aside from my video games (thank god those were never tossed), all of my childhood is gone. My pogs, my TMNT action figures, some transformers, pokemon cards, a whole case of hockey and baseball cards, they're all gone. As such, I find myself unwilling to toss anything that can have value to me, or had it in the past.

Under my bed, I have five or six boxes that I never really touch, but they have books, magazines, papers, knick-knacks, and other things in them. I've been doing my yearly move to a new apartment each year like a typical college student, and those boxes just move along under my bed each time, increasing in size. I even have a small shipping box Infernal Monkey sent me over a year ago that has two Hungry Jack's (Burger King for us non-Australians) toys in it.

When it comes to cleaning, I do a pretty bad job of removing things. Most of it just get crammed into new spaces. Every once in a while, I pull out something old, and I'm glad I saved it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by TheKnightOfNee

My mother is a compulsive cleaner who will throw anything away if it is not in use the moment she sees it. As such, most of the toys I had as a child exist in some landfill. Other items I had, like posters and books have disappeared for good too. Aside from my video games (thank god those were never tossed), all of my childhood is gone.

Your mother is a saint. In my house, MY patron saint of cleanliness (mom) was always instantly vetoed with the BIG BAD COUNTER SAINT OF PACKRATS (dad) and thus our house (and compound, for that matter) still remains a massive fucking landfill.

Over the last few years it hasn't been as bad because he stores the vast majority of the shit he keeps stays at his nursery. But, if the broken down Jeep full of his junk parked in front of my door is any indication, I dread the day when he runs out of space at the fucking nursery because it only means whatever useless junk he gets a hold of is going to end up stacked 8 ft. high around our houses like some makeshift fortress... You know... IN CASE THE REVOLUTION COMES.

FELIPE NO

I did the same exact thing a few weeks ago. My closet was packed so tight I couldn't fit anything more in there so out came all the old Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, and Legos. I somehow managed to convince myself to give away most of it. For some reason I don't think my little cousins will appreciate these quite like I did...

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Oh good lord yes, I am so very much like this. I keep all manner of things, I keep boxes for things, I find it very hard to just chuck things out. The fact I have a lot of stuff doesn't help matters, so my room very much falls into the 'organised mess' category. The piles of games, DVDs and CDs just sitting around on my desk and side table at the moment are getting a little silly.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

For a long time, I kept most of my stuff from school. BUt thanks to scanners, I was able to compress 2 cases full of things in 2 CDs.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Strangely enough, I was just going to do the same to my room. I have to clean it out and decide what I want to take to university in a month. I have all my notes saved from grade twelve sciences, old drawings, model cars, pokemon cards, a binder full of hockey cards and old elementary school projects. I want to throw most of it away, but my mom wants to keep it for sentimental value.
I think the hardest thing to throw out are some t-shirts I have from a music camp I went to. I have about 4 of them, and it was a big part of my life for a long time. I just can't see myself throwing them out. They may have to spend a few more years in my closet.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I am a packrat. I have photo copied stories from High School. Pokemon and NeoPets cards. Tons of stuffed animals. A great portion of the artwork my son has done over the last four years. Barbies and other toys.... The list goes on and on. I did throw away the majority of my old magazines a year ago, but I keep all my National Geographics and Spin magazines... My parents were packrats, too.

Most amazing jew boots

I keep going to tidy my room, convinced I can free up some wardrobe or bookcase space, but I can never bring myself to throw anything away. I've got some really dumb shit too; a napkin from an annual family holiday, an old snake skin, my primary school jumper, a couple of homework planners from highschool (which are absolutely desecrated with graffiti), a box of cards from birthdays and Christmases, two shelves full of beanie babies and other assorted stuffed animals, notebooks full of completely random crap, a scrapbook I've had since I was about 6 which is mostly made up of Lion King stickers, two Crash Bandicoot figurines, a bunch of Pokemon cards which were given to me, insect repellant which I'll probably never use, unused stationary because I have some sort of addiction to buying it, the list is endless.

It took me a year to finally chuck some old issues of magazines I had lying around; I cut out the articles I wanted and stuck them in a big folder. The same with the box of old cards; I now only keep the ones from the previous year (excepting certain special ones) but I don't know why I do it, since I never really look at them again. I worry that if I throw something out, I'll find some inexplicable use or need for it soon after it's gone. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a neat-freak too, so I find myself in a conundrum most of the time.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I've still got all my childhood books and magazines and stuff in boxes, many boxes, up in the attic. One day the combined weight of them all might bring them, and everything else up there, crashing through the ceiling, crushing my head to death.

Faux-profound:

I am the product of those books, magazines and childs things. They created me. A fitting end, then, if they also destroy me.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I tend to keep a lot of useless stuff lying around, old magazines, tickets I got somewhere, books from school that have no use any more. Mind you, my room is still clean, it's not like everything is a mess, it just gets cluttered, up until a certain point (often when I'm looking for something and can't find it immediately), when I get so annoyed that I go on a huge cleaning spree and start throwing out stuff just to keep my sanity. I like my place to look clean and organized, so these sprees happen not that often, but the amount of garbage that does get thrown out can be huge.

I'm the only one in my family who does this, my brother is basically a pig who still has magazines and even newspapers that he read three years ago lying in a huge pile under his desk and bed. My mom cleans up, but she doesn't care if anything is organized, she has like ten folders full of recipes she ripped out of magazines, with no organizational system at all. My dad is a bit like me, he has cleaning sprees when he can't find stuff, but for the rest he saves everything, we have a set of old and disgusting clocks from his parents' house, stuff that he hated, but just can't seem to throw away.

FELIPE NO