Sustainable Living

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Personal Essay (Very) Rough Draft—Maybe calling it Sustainable Living but idk

Our house is full of lost things. It’s packed from the basement to the attic with stuff my mom calls keepsakes. Maybe it’s because she’s a history professor that she treats my old things like artefacts—evidence of my childhood. Guilty as charged lol! Trophies, favorite dolls, book reports I got A’s on—every year more and more of the things I’ve outgrown seem to take over the house. All of my old belongings tell a story, even if I don’t recognize or relate to them. If I don’t feel connected to those things anymore, whose keepsakes are they? Now that I’m finishing up my first year of college and deciding where to live this summer, I’m not sure how to live in those narrow spaces between my things. Not sure what you mean by that but otherwise, great start, Mia! I’m intrigued! And don’t be silly, you’re always welcome at home, like we planned. Dad and I won’t even charge rent haha

I’ve always told myself a story about how the house got so impossible, but now I’m not so sure I trust my own memory—it’s fragmented and in pieces, like everything we own. My dad dances around discussing the mess, like the complicated footwork he uses to step around the piles on the floor.

So, I’m writing this essay at my clean desk in my tidy dorm room, as a way to understand. When I’ve begged to get rid of things, my mom tells me there’s a plan for every item, or at least a plan for there to be a plan. And much as I want to blame my parents and to get rid of everything by the truckload, there’s always a hesitancy, a breath caught in my throat. I can feel in myself a reluctance to throw anything out when somewhere, someone might need each item, if only I could get it to them. Our house feels like a holding area for a future that will never arrive. Hyperbole?

My mom researches in archives and collections, seeing worth in objects others throw away. It’s not a surprise that she thinks of herself as a collector who measures historical value, who saves memories tethered to things. Is this obsession with objects something that was passed down to me like my hair color, or is it the only way I know how to live? 

I used to think our family was like everyone else’s. Then, in fourth grade, I invited my friend Lucy over to watch a movie, which might have been Wall-E. I loved that movie, even though it terrified me to think about people who covered their world in so much trash that they had to live in space.

But when Lucy came through the front door, despite the cutesy sign in the entryway, “Pardon our mess—memories being made here,” there was a glitch in her smile, a swivel of her head, like the robots on Wall-E’s trash planet. She might have said, “maybe we should clean up a little,” or she might have taken one look and said “let’s play outside.” Lucy was always a bit precious.

I said something about how we were being good to the environment by not throwing things away, just like in Wall-E. In my memory, she left at that moment, running across the lawn to her mom’s idling car. I knew right then that the inside of our house was naked and private and only for family.

Then I have half a memory of swiping everything off a shelf, filling up a trash bag and sneaking it out of the house, only for my mom to find it and bring it back in again. I must have asked, “why can’t I just throw this away?” because someone, I can’t remember who, asked “where is away?” That moving or burying trash doesn’t get rid of it and that even burning it puts fumes into the air. I’m glad you shared this with me because you’re remembering it backwards…That’s what historians do—we preserve memory! It was you who always asked “where is away?” 

That line, “where is away,” came from a book called Sustainable Living for Kids my parents got me, and it told us how important it was to reduce, reuse and recycle. I asked my mom if that’s why our house looked the way it did, that we were keeping things out of landfills. That’s about the time we started to sell our stuff in the consignment sale. Did my parents give me that book as a message, telling me that it would be bad for the planet to throw anything away, making me complicit in our house’s shameful secret? Of course not! We gave you lots of educational books. And it must have been a good choice, since you became an Environmental Studies major! It’s true that trash planet in Wall-E scared the life out of you. That’s why we suggested getting rid of things through the consignment sale. It ran twice a year, and anything we didn’t sell was donated to charity.

But the basement full of teetering piles, the attic full of tubs with the abandoned numbering system all seemed endless, and no match for a kid. My Dad helped me bring stuff down from the attic and to clear floor space for the enormous moving boxes we’d marked “Keepsakes,” “Missing Pieces,” “Recycle,” “Toss,” and “Ready to Consign.” I couldn’t wait to fill them. My mom was in charge of making sure we didn’t get rid of anything worth saving. 

I started going through piles of items, taking apart the Lego kits and putting each brick into (re-used) plastic bags, trying on last year’s clothes to see if they still fit. But so much stuff wound up in the boxes marked “Missing Pieces.” The Fossil Hunting Set with no magnifying glass. My suffragette Halloween costume missing its sash. I was so frightened of trashing the planet that I didn’t want to sell a skirt without its coordinating top and headband, not if they’d been bought as a set for picture day. Because what if we sold the set and then that one lost piece turned up? I wanted everything extra in our too-full home to go to someone who would make good use of it, so everything would be orderly and nothing would be wasted. Every time something got lost—a piece of a puzzle gone from the box—I imagined it must be so lonely. Every spare sock crying threads of tears for its mate. Yes, I remember! You wanted everything to find a home.

But I started to notice how so many things I put into the “Ready to Consign” box would wind up in yet another “Keepsakes” box. Outfit after outfit laid out like Flat Stanleys. Why would we keep them? There didn’t seem to be much I was allowed to consign. Then I noticed Mom kept rescuing stuff from the “Toss” pile, like my completed Summer Challenge Workbooks and the clay models of planets I made, as brittle as cookies. Keeping things like that definitely wasn’t saving the planet. That first sale barely seemed to make a dent.

I always said I was letting things ripen—I was getting rid of them, I just needed time to let go. Dad gets that—I wish you would, too.

I started to dread the spring sale. It was called the Huge Kids Consignment Sale and I imagined these giant children looming over me, just like our boxes of stuff. The idea was to get rid of my things, so why did the boxes and piles seem to be multiplying, filling the attic to the rafters, winding their way downstairs to the basement, with narrow paths between them that we had to walk with tightrope feet? First the ping pong table and then the dining room table were covered with papers, every math test and hand turkey art. This wasn’t sustainable living, which I’m learning more about in college all the time—this was something else. Part of growing up was realizing that you can’t match every sock–not everything has to be found. And that trash planet I was so scared of? I was already living there. How sustainable was this? 

During Covid, my mom promised, “now I’ll finally get it all sorted.” She bought archival quality boxes for my school worksheets and class photos. She put together all of these lists about what was in each of them They’re called finding aids fyi but she has to uncover the stuff to organize it. Because what good is a collection of report cards if the ones from sixth grade are missing? When lockdown ended, nothing had changed. There hadn’t been enough time. But I had cleaned my room and always kept the door shut. ok, I should have got rid of more things while you were growing up but now, I have to go through everything so I don’t throw away anything you might want later! Or hand down to your own kids 🙂

I sometimes imagine being chosen for a reality TV show, where everything in your house is emptied into a gleaming warehouse. Each item is organized by category. Hundreds of people are paid to match every glove, to find every piece of that Mousetrap game. Then they give those things to people who need them—a perfect distribution system, so that only essential items are left and our house is as inviting as an IKEA showroom.

In my mom’s reality show—they would match every old photo to every negative and they would make that Mousetrap game perfect, but she would keep it all and admire it. I can’t live that way anymore, which is why I don’t want to go back home.

Wikipedia defines hoarding as:

Mia, I deleted this paragraph because Wikipedia is not research. And yes, the house is a mess but that doesn’t make me a hoarder. Anyway, I’m confused. Why would you live somewhere else for the summer when any money you make will be used up on rent? I tried to call you just now but your voicemail is full. Who’s hoarding now lol. Texting you

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So maybe my mom trying to organize all of our stuff, maybe me trying to perfectly recycle everything in the house, it’s all part of the same problem. As I look over this draft, it’s so full of gaps and questions. I know in this class we’re always supposed to think of who our audience is. Maybe all this time, the audience has been my mom. I’m thinking of giving this draft to her. I have some questions I’d like to ask.

Do we really need a shadow box for my third-place track medals, like some monument to mediocrity? Maybe I don’t want a museum about my life, which isn’t going all that great. I know you’ll figure it out! And why keep my old crib and baby clothes for so many years? By the time I was allowed to consign my onesies, they all had the wrong Disney characters on them so they wouldn’t sell. None of this is normal.

Look, you’re old enough now to think about why we might have kept your baby things, Mia. You weren’t supposed to be an only. We thought they were hand-me-downs, but then there was nobody to hand them down to. Dad and I had you just fine but then we lost one and we just couldn’t have another.

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Hey Mom, if you read this far there’s a few things I want you to know. It’s not just a messy house, it’s not just saving things for historical record or the environment, there’s something wrong. Like maybe depression or even OCD. I keep my dorm room so clean; you’ve never seen so many right angles. It’s not like it comes easy. After I cut apart a pizza box so I can recycle the bottom, it’s hard for me to throw away a lid covered with grease stains. Even though no thrift store is going to resell my holey sneakers, I still want to donate them. I picture that mountain of cast-off American clothes in the Chilean desert that I learned about in my Environmental Ethics class, just so I can throw my old shoes in the trash.

Maybe now that I’m out of the house you could just stop, too. You don’t need a full set of my baby teeth, you don’t need some bib just because I drooled on it. Do you need to keep all my tee shirts to make a quilt? Even from here I feel suffocated. Everyone joked about how you would handle an empty nest and that you would have to find a hobby. Am I your hobby? 

You’re so busy trying to organize all of my elementary school book reports that you don’t ask how I’m actually doing. The answer is that I’ve got nothing for you to put in a display case. I’m supposed to be writing this essay, but all I want to do is get through to you. When I was home for winter break, I felt like I didn’t have space to breathe. So, there’s a job available in one of the dorms this summer. All of my college friends are going home, or travelling. But I’d rather live in a building filled with empty rooms than a house that’s so full of memories that there’s no space to make new ones. 

If you and dad called somebody, rented a dumpster, you could clean out the place. I know it’s hard. Every day I feel guilty about letting things go—every day I worry it’s bad for the planet. But then I think about that phrase—sustainable living. It’s a life you can sustain. Just read this and think about it. Please.

Mia, I can’t make you come home, or stop you from leaving behind the person you were before. Maybe my job is to remember everything about you that you’re trying to forget. Love always has to go somewhere, even into things. I just need some time to organize it all. Just wait and see what I do with the place. If it means you can’t come home for a while, that’s ok. With you gone, I can use the space in your room to organize things. That might be just what it takes.