Desired Spaces

In my last blog post, I took photos that showed off my computer setup. In the background, you could get brief glimpses into my bedroom, where I spend most of my time when I’m not at work. In the last photo (This one above, actually), you can see three small cases full of DVDs and Blu-Rays, along with another stack that went up almost as high as them. You could see there I had no space for any more discs, even the stack was pushing it. 

So a little while back, I bought a bigger case for my movies. On my day off, I started early in the morning putting it together and by eight A.M I was arranging my movies into it. I was having trouble figuring out both how to organize them in a way I liked and how to utilize the space in those new shelves. These new ones were wider, and could fit two stacks of DVDs/Blu-rays each- one set behind the other. 

The new shelf, once assembled

I took a good look at the movies I had on my old shelves. Stuff like The Matrix series and Marvel movies I knew right away were going up. Then upon seeing the others, the minor curiosities or cheap pickups, I kept looking at them wondering ‘Why’d I buy these?’ Chances were I’d never watch a number of them, and even if I did, only once. I kept looking between my newer shelves and the older ones, and I realized putting all them up wouldn’t have solved my space problem. It would’ve filled most of the shelves just the same.

Looking to my left, was my other shelf filled with my video games. Again, most of them I’ve barely played. It was just as messy there too. Mario memorabilia clumsily next to my Nintendo Switch and 3DS games, his LEGO house taking over most of the lower shelf. UNO cards, ducks and all sorts of junk rested on top. There was a variant of UNO with blocks blocking the light switch by the door. A dragon’s skeleton was holding up my library of Xbox games on the middle shelf, just barely. Then, in front of that shelf, there was the small wooden table that holds my laptop, with more junk behind it.

I did mention an obsession with rubber ducks a long time ago...

All of these things sitting there, gathering dust. I was getting depressed looking at all the wasted space and money I had used up all this time. But even packing up all the movies I didn’t put on my new shelf didn’t help get rid of that feeling as I took them into the garage.

Those who’ve read my previous post would also see a photo I used of a cluttered garage filled with junk, illustrating how frustrating digging out older consoles could be for playing classic games.

If I had felt confident enough, I could’ve used a photo of MY garage instead. There’s BARELY any room to navigate in there, the clutter in there as tall as I am. A small path led from the door into the house, across the garage door to two freezers on the other side. The rest was covered with boxes and plastic tubs of books, family photos, clothes, blankets, old video games, VHS tapes, and empty boxes from TVs or 12 packs of soda. Immediately opening the door from the house, you can see an old couch right in front of you, buried under boxes of crap and even parts of a bedframe. 

To my right, down the small path, I could see the tubs of things I knew were mine. The older video games, the books and graphic novels, and even more movies all stashed away because there was no room for them. And the movies in my arms were only adding onto it. 

With everything that was in my room and in the garage, I felt like I was being a hoarder. Collecting for the sake of collection or for whatever had caught my mild curiosities. All to end up being put away into a pseudo dump of everyone’s design.

A small view with a lot of stuff

I share a small bedroom with my girlfriend. She takes up one side with her boombox and a computer she names Pearl. She also has a habit of collecting masquerade masks, sunglasses, and off-brand NERF guns. On my side is my TV, my computer, my movies and video games. I also have a small box with CDs that I use as a sort-of nightstand by my side of the bed. 

You can see I'm not the most well-kept between us.

We know it can get cluttered with our DVDs and used drinks and snacks, but despite our best efforts to keep the room as spacey as can be, there’s only so much that can be done. Plus, we both have the same vice of buying cheap DVDs and little knickknacks so it piles up again after a while. Even our closet is full of random stuff from trying to clean up after ourselves.

Picking her up from work later that day, I showed her the shelf and told her my feelings about all the crap I had in the room and in the garage. She told me she sometimes felt a similar way about her stuff.

Before we got together, we were lonely souls with barely any friends or life to speak of outside of our small bubbles. Any time alone away from the world, we resided to our interests. When she listened to her music, she felt free from everything that was going on at her family’s place. I was using video games, movies, and YouTube to ease my mind from the stresses of my life. It filled a void, and we kept feeding them with all the stuff we would get, with any money we had. There was no reason to get out beyond any of that.

Now that we were together, those vices began to pile up, and she argued that trying to clean it out and make space was a metaphor for a change in our lives. A reason to get past them. We were doing things to prepare for a future together- saving up for a place and I was paying off a car I had recently gotten a year ago. Why get all this other stuff if it was only going to get boxed up?

So now, we are trying to prioritize ourselves, focusing on each other and aiming for better things. Given everything that’s accumulated over time, the stuff we have now, it was better to actually give those things attention than leave them to waste. Backlogs of games we wanted to play before or renting the movie instead of buying it at Wal-Mart. The rest, what we don't see keeping, can either be sold online or donated elsewhere. 

Obviously, there are people worse than we are, their stuff piling up in entire houses… even cluttered in their yards. Perhaps it all comes from that same feeling- a desire to fill an empty space in life. A desire that could fill up a lot more than anyone thinks it would. 

<3

I feel I have to break from my usual form here to give special acknowledgement to my lovely girlfriend herself. This post went through a couple of iterations, particularly aimed to reflect a more general perspective that unfortunately came out feeling too wide. She helped bring it back to a more closer and personal experience. Without her input, I would’ve either given up on this or posted something less than satisfactory. <3