Keep Pile

A cool breeze blows through the open window, wafting the fine cream linen curtains into the room. A few sheets of paper, from the ever growing pile on the oak desk, lightly shift and drift to the floor. Boxes, tubs and half sorted clothes litter the carpet, leaving barely enough room to move. A quiet humming heard coming from the far side of the house signifies the hoover has been brought out of the cupboard and my mother has started a long day of cleaning. Outside, birds chirp cheerfully to one another as they feed from the seeds left for them. The occasional ding of bicycle bells, and the joyful noise of children laughing rises and then falls again as they pass on by. Then, the singular thud from the now waning paperboy throwing the Sunday newspaper into the front garden. In the midst of it all, I sit, cross legged on the floor, sifting through my old jotters and other mementos from the school that I’ve grown remarkably fond of. Unfortunately, despite my mother’s best efforts and direction, my ‘keep’ pile is still somewhat larger than the ‘discard’. It’s funny how fast life seems to change. Scribbly artworks I once held up with so much pride I now find mixed in with my maths books containing quadratics and graphs that I felt at the time - and, for that matter, still do - I will never use again. One of the many boxes pulled out from under the bed contains my old Barbies and Polly Pockets from years ago, and nestled in amongst them all, I finally find my black Urban Decay eyeliner. I’ve been looking for that for ages! It’s typical that it’s an expensive one. Must’ve fallen down the side of my bed when I was in a rush to get somewhere. The clothes strewn across my floor are a similar peculiar mix - hand made dresses from my mother in her sewing phase and knitted jumpers made with love by my dearest granny lie beside the fast fashion of Primark and H&M, still hidden away in their brown paper bags. What seems like hundreds of shoes also litter my floor, some hand me downs from my grandma. What can I say? She’s very stylish. However much I like them though, they are hardly the ones I want to be seen wearing in Glasgow on a Saturday! I decide to forget my clothes - sorting my books will be an easier task. My poor shelves are overburdened with books. Prettily illustrated fairy stories, and the fantastic adventures of children written by Enid Blyton now need to make room for the grown up fantasy of Tolkien, the cosy murders of Agatha Christie, and the beautifully worded love stories of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. Is it just me, or do all teenagers have this same juxtaposition of possessions? Clinging desperately to childhood to which I know I can never return, and yet at the same time so keen to grow up and move on - even if I'm not entirely sure what I want to move on to. 

One of my primary school worksheets is headed, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”. I remember writing - although scrawling may be a better word - my answer with such confidence: “Kind” and then decorating it with pink stars and love hearts. It makes me laugh every time I come across it. But shouldn’t that be the dream still? That when others talk about you they’ll say things like “She lights up a room!” and “She’s such a lovely, caring person.” But apparently that’s not an acceptable aspiration to have at 16. The questions have changed. “What university?”, “What college?”, “What job?”. How am I meant to know? How am I supposed to pick my entire life course at 16 or 17? I envy the few who have always seemed to know exactly what they want to do. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to shift these dolls and clothes and calculations (how on earth did they get so mixed up… I must have been daydreaming, which I’ll admit, I do quite often, instead of concentrating on what I should be doing). They hold memories. Memories of uncomplicated times and easy laughter and joy, mixed with recollections of difficulties - such as when I wished I had never picked that stupidly difficult physics class - but they are all held so dear to me. Sometimes, I’ll lay in bed, late at night, and wish I could go back, relive it all. Go back to the time when it was socially acceptable among the girls in my class to run wildly, to shout at the top of our little lungs, to throw ourselves down in the grass and laugh when my uniform would inevitably get covered in grass stains that I knew my mother would complain about, but didn’t really mind (she always told me off with a smile). The humming of the hoover stops, and my bedroom door is pushed open. “Good grief, I don’t think cleaning is quite your thing, is it?”. My mother raises an eyebrow and smiles down at me. “Maybe not, however, have you recently had a look in the attic? I’m pretty sure I’ve counted more boxes up there full of your ‘spring cleaning’ attempts than there are in the whole of Europe!” I shoot back, laughing. It seems that my mother, at 45, has the same issue of never fully letting go of the past. Perhaps that's why, thankfully, she agrees that my Barbies can stay but need to be rehomed in the attic. Fair enough. True, we need space to create new memories, hold new keepsakes, love new people, but surely there’s nothing wrong with holding onto at least some of the things that shaped our childhood and cradle precious memories. They are, after all, the things that made you. Me. Us. I’ll sort the clothes next week… hopefully. By Daisy Gibson