Growing up, core rarely had help cleaning her room, so it was constantly messy with clothes and stacks of books and toys on the floor. This was not ideal, but still within the range of normality.

But then we went from a house to apartments and had to share a bedroom, and there simply was not enough space. We had nowhere to unpack boxes into. Having our belongings partially in a cardboard box in the corner became our normal. Digging through them and taping them up when they broke, finding things she thought were long gone.

Even when we moved out on our own for the first time, the room we were in was tiny and we weren't allowed to leave our things in the main space. Nothing except kitchen supplies and laundry soap were ours outside of our bedroom and bathroom. So still, we were living out of boxes. We can't share any photos from this time because our room was so cluttered.

Then... then we moved into our own place. We didn't have to compress ourself and constantly rotate our things through 10 square feet of living space. We didn't have to eat in bed and abandon crafts when they got knocked to the ground.

But, we had never had the opportunity to fully unpack our things. We were accustomed to leaving them in boxes until we needed them. So even now, almost a year later, we are still unpacking things.

However, due to the party, we had a reason to move those boxes. Make things look tidy. And it's... very odd.

It feels so open and empty. Part of that is we need a little more furniture (a swivel armchair for the book corner and a plant shelf by the porch), but also, the clutter was part of our landscape for a decade. Our whole life. We haven't lived without the presence of brown boxes in ten years.

The only time we have is when we lived with our father and his second wife. She kept the house actually clean and wouldn't have tolerated Decòr de Box. We never felt comfortable, there, though. So as I sit, looking over a clean living room, I feel on edge.