I'm beginning to think perhaps it's just a habit, part 3, my childhood

We may not have had a lot of money (there were prosperous years and less prosperous years) but we never wanted for toys. I remember my mom giving up on us keeping our bedroom clean and just asking  us to keep a path through it. I remember her warning us that mess attracts bugs. (boy, did I learn that lesson later!)

As we got older, Seester got neater. I never really did. The drawers under my bed were full of stuff. There were years when there was a dead frog in there from a biology set I received as a birthday gift. I wanted to be a scientist. I loved my chemistry sets. and the test tubes and that frog needed to be dissected. (it never was) my bookshelves were full of books. My drawers were full of toys. I had many shoes and a constant influx of hand me down clothes from my cousin. I generally couldn't open those drawers because they were full or there was too much stuff in front of it. At one point, Seester put as masking tape line down the center of the room and I kept my mess on my side of it.

When we moved, the stuff went with. It was my stuff! I liked it! Toys were rarely gotten rid of, unless my mom got pissed enough to clean my mess into a big trash bag. The only time I remember actively getting rid of something was the She Ra purge when I was 10 or 11. I regretted it for years.

When my cousin moved in, and I moved to a mattress on the floor, it was even harder to keep up with the mess. But we tried. We made it a game. This was especially important when we put that house on the market. Everything had to stay clean.

Then we moved to the sticks. And I had my own closet. I'm pretty sure it was full. I don't think I ever fully unpacked, I think I just acquired more stuff. And when we left that place, we took only the things that were most important, so much of my stuff got left behind. This was actually a good thing.

We started over. I couldn't have a lot of stuff because there were 4 of us living in a 2 bedroom apartment. Eventually I did get a few things that I had left behind, but most of it was disposed of by Dadi and GJ. By the time that happened, I was an adult with a whole new pile of stuff. All the childhood detritus was out of sight, out of mind.