Cleaning

Runny nose. As always, allergies get the best of me. I'm trying to clean my room for the past 3 weeks but to no avail. Jonnor needs constant attention, always waking up after 2 hours max. Cleaning my room requires attention and a lot of time. It usually takes me a week to finish but not because it's that dirty. It's because within an hour (if I get that lucky), my allergies kick in. That is the problem for me and 1 of my sister. We cannot clean the house and we hate it when someone does if we are home. You see, we are allergic to dust, that and a lot of other things.

The hardest part for me when cleaning is throwing away things, the reason why I have a lot of useless crap in my room. Tickets (bus and movies), letters dated since the dawn of ages, souvenirs, little things that remind me of  an important occasion, old diaries and datebooks, gifts from just about all my close friends in different times of my life. I just can't let go of these things that hold distant but precious memories. I have clothes all worn out, damaged bags and wallets, all given as a gift that I can't give away or place in a storage box. So, I still have it in my room. When I arrived from my 2-year stint abroad, I had to find my personal stuff. The 2nd floor was renovated by my then fiance as a dowry so all my stuff were either missing, thrown, given away, or in boxes somewhere. Mom said she had to because Ondoy destroyed most of our roofing and my room was soaked in rain. I found my high school pictures dried and faded. I cried when I saw it. Piles of old pictures including the negatives, all wasted. With no internet and social media at that time and no digicam, those were the only copies I had.  I can't even find the printed copy of my first blog! I still think my best works were in there. When I got back, carrying with me new memories, there will be no room to sleep in if I don't discard some so I took inspiration from a book about removing the clutter in your life. It was so hard! I took a deep breath everytime I had to throw something. I still kept some, those which I find so hard to let go of. That is just so me! Holding on to things that no longer serve me. Clinging to a past that I'm trying hard to run away from. I'm funny that way. Stubborn, maybe. 

But now, I think I have to do it again to give way to Jonnor's things. As in life, you have to remove certain things to create new ones. In this case, create beautiful and lasting memories with my son and husband.