my childhood home that i've been living in my whole life is receiving home renovations for the first time ever. i have to clean.
we clear out our pantries full of food that expired the week we got them in 2022, food we got from the food bank and food from the grandmother's food program and food my other grandparents gave us from the food bank. we have so much it both disgusts me and urges to overconsume to leave no waste; i must be an amalgam of everything i've consumed. we throw it up out. we have to clean. i try to convince my mom we don't need the strawberry slushy syrup from 2018. if anything else is only a year out, we instead have to sneak it out to the garbage bin in another bag lest my mom justifies its existence and fishes it out of the trash.
we're looking at school material my dad kept in plastic tubs since we were in middle school. he asks us what should be thrown out. we say yes to everything but pause at the folder of worksheets from our now-gone high school latin class, deciding to keep it. we continue hauling out boxes to the somewhat illegally constructed garage-converted-room that my brother lives in. earlier, we had talked about who will be living in what room for the time being and my dad said my grandmother would probably be living with my brother to be away from the noise and construction. when my dad's out of earshot, my brother protests and considers moving in with his girlfriend. there's several boxes of bath electronics that my dad got from his job that's he's going to be laid off from within the next few months. they're stacked precariously high that my sister tells us to not stand there when an earthquake happens. we have to clean, yet he tells us we need to keep these because he can resell them on ebay, confident in the demand for bulk amounts of hot tub circuit boards.
i dread clearing out my mom's room: piles and piles of years and years of our entire family's clothes. there's bootleg pokemon shirts i haven't worn since i was 8, 4 sets of PE wear across multiple grades from my siblings and me, countless t-shirts from volunteer events and extracurriculars and AP classes that are destined for transience and falling out of our wardrobe. i have many memories of my mom and my siblings and i sitting cross-legged on the floor folding clothes for hours on end, only to upheave a pile of clothes a day later to find one particular t-shirt i liked and missed. one of the first small signals of independence that i wrenched from my parents is finally managing my own laundry and not immediately tiring at the thought of putting away a pair of sweatpants neatly. maybe i just didn't want to be in my mom's room anymore. all of this weighs heavily on my mom. there is so much, and i don't know how we're getting everything out. "do we have to clean it all?" she asks. "surely they won't get to my room right away?"
i find a little paper craft, an 8th grade commencement gift i got from a friend i used to be close to. i take it and open it up to find rolled up messages which i don't read and i put it in a shoebox of other mementos i keep but don't want to look at. i joke with my sister, asking her if we have a disease of getting and keeping things that we don't need. i tell her offhandedly i just want to throw everything away now, just start over. i find a photo strip of me and some college friends from 2019 and i debate whether i should share it in the larger instagram group chat that's been inactive for years or the imessage group text i have with my two closer friends. i decide to put it in the box of mementos i want to keep but don't want to look at. i get back to cleaning.
my mom and dad argue about the house with my mom not wanting to accept that she needs to clean out her entire room before friday and thus have to come to terms with what she has to let go. i tell her i'll just help her. we clear out more boxes of clothes, bags of iPhone 6 cases, bottles of unopened hair products, a dusty blue power ranger maskâmy brother's, not mine, it's his favorite color. my mom still wants to keep it all, so for now much of it clutters my room. it's hard to tell someone like her she needs to lose things again. my dad looks up new stoves and wants to get gas burners again because they heat fast and gas is cheap. he finds and hands me a plush dolphin i probably adored for two days as a kid. he looks down at me, a knowing glance about how i like sharks now. i keep it on my desk as i go take a shower before the hot water goes away. i never experience nausea, yet i feel like i'm vomiting. i have to clean.