Cleaning up

It's amazing how much clutter can accumulate over a span of four years.

Yesterday, I began cleaning up what was my second home during my life as a college student. The pile of old papers, old notebooks, old letters, old newspapers that I had to dispose of rose to about two feet high. I found relics that date back to my freshman year and dog-eared readings from my sophomore days.

It's quite interesting to leaf through them one more time. In that instant, the decision whether to keep them or trash them is one that isn't easy to make. On the one hand, there is this desire to preserve relics of the past. Despite them being simply academic requirements, they contain an indelible part of who I am at that certain point in time. On the other hand, they will simply become new clutter in my room. Where will I place them? Keeping them would only delay their inevitable disposal.

So I threw away a huge lot of them and kept some that were dear to my heart. I kept essays from my days with Bernal and research papers I've done over the years. I almost kept my first F from Ambeth Ocampo but decided against it afterwards. My memories of that teacher is too great that the F I received for one exam is rather inconsequential.

It is of course sad that another phase of my life has ended. Although this may be best illustrated by graduation, I find that it feels more pronounced as I slowly empty my cozy condominium unit. It is an entirely different classroom for me. My learnings about myself, my roommates, and the funny complications and simplicities of relationships are simply priceless. Our anecdotes will forever be inside jokes. Unit 1003 is our private world sheltered from the outside elements and bounded by nothing but each other.

It's hard to believe that four years has passed by. After the long hours devoted to schoolwork and the priceless moments shared over laughter, it's time to clean up and once again, begin anew. It's an uncertain beginning for me, but one that I have to plunge into nonetheless.

I now realize that the sooner I can let go of material relics, the quicker I can move on.

The experiences, however, will never simply be clutter.