I have never found myself relating so much to a reality television show until I started emptying out my storage unit before moving in for my senior year. As the moving truck started piling higher and higher, I came to the realization that I am a hoarder.
Like many University of Oregon students, I moved to Eugene for my freshman year with nothing but a backpack full of books and a suitcase full of clothes. Living in the Bean West residence hall, there wasn’t exactly room for anything else. Throughout the year, I collected a few more essential items: bed sheets, a television, posters, a skateboard and a hamper.
Come sophomore year, I made the decision to move into an unfurnished two-bedroom apartment with a friend.
This is where my hoarding began.
We had three rooms to fill so we kicked our money-saving skills into action and started asking around for furniture. Before we knew it, we had grandparents, siblings and friends offering up the furniture they no longer needed.
Although we were willing to accept anything, we could not believe some of the quality furniture that these people were willing to give away. That year, our apartment was the place to be. Compared to most of my friends’ apartments, ours felt more homey due to the vintage furniture and wall decorations. Everyone wanted to come over for Duck games and movie nights because we had the perfect amount of seating for any occasion.
Once the lease for our apartment was up, we felt it was time to upgrade to a house, furthering the need to fill space. Moving out, we realized we had more stuff than we thought, but we had no idea how much we were about to acquire. With the addition of two new roommates coming from their own apartments, we each had our own full set of kitchenware, enough table space to feed 10 and a movie collection to die for.
Before the end of junior year, one of our roommates decided to leave. When she had moved out for good, we noticed that she had left some of her things. We asked her about the extra stuff and, to our surprise, she was willing to just give us her things. We still could not believe that college students had so much extra stuff — until we started moving out of our house for the summer.
After days of packing, we had a house full of boxes ready to be hauled into the moving truck. A number of trips and a handful of squished fingers later, we were all moved out. Our storage unit was full to the brim with tables, chairs and bikes piled high on top of beds, desks and couches.
Since we were losing a roommate, we had to find new accommodations for senior year. In turn, we found two more roommates, making us a total of five. Like before, adding two new roommates meant adding another truck full of household items.
When it came time to move in for our senior year, we were all up and ready to go at 8 a.m with smiles on our faces. We knew we had a long day of moving ahead of us, but not having seen each others’ storage units, we had no idea what we were really in for. Although we never stopped complaining about how much extra stuff we were unloading, we were happy to each have our own couch or recliner to relax on at the end of the day.
Now two weeks later, we are finally getting the last boxes emptied into every nook and cranny we can find. A lack of closet space has caused some suitcases to sit full of clothes and the couches may be squeezed together a bit. But we have finally come to terms with the fact that we have too much stuff.
We are now trying our best to offer up our items on Oregon’s Free & For Sale Facebook page, donate to St. Vincent DePaul’s and throw away knickknacks we have no recollection of buying. We still have certain stuff we just can’t seem to get rid of, but who knows, we might need it when we go our separate ways after graduation.
Owens: Collecting through the college years
Tanner Owens
October 3, 2015
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