useless things I call anchors

I’ve been sitting on my floor for hours and this room of mine is a literal minefield. It’s 1 a.m. (when I am writing this) and I’m supposed to be "decluttering," but I’ve mostly just been staring at scraps of paper and feeling every emotion all at once

It feels like if I bin these stuff, the girl who collected it just... evaporates? Like if the physical evidence is gone, I’m afraid so will those versions of me

My mom earlier in the evening was on a mission to purge my life. She tossed this one specific dress into the donation pile, the one my grandma got me. My grandma isn’t here anymore, and the little girl of me that could actually fit into that dress isn't either, but that’s not my point.

Mom didn’t even have to look at me. She just yelled from the hallway: "Anushka, I swear, if you sneak anything back out of that pile, you’re in trouble!"

I don't know how she knew. I was already mid-heist, grabbing the dress and shoving it back into the depths of my closet. I’m a hoarder of memories, sue me.

I’m looking at what else survived the great purge:

The Messi cutouts: Just yellowed newspaper at this point. I remember exactly how it felt to sit there with scissors, acting like I was archiving high art.

A gift from a crush (12 years ago): I always thought I’d use these when the time it right. The right time indeed never came. And it’s just preserved here as it was. I think it’ll be absolutely hilarious if I send this to him and ask if he remembers giving me these.

Most days, I’m actually pretty reckless. I’ll throw stuff out just to feel like I’m "making room for more." Chasing minimalism as we would like to call it. But today? Today wasn’t that.

I’m keeping the fragments. They’re my anchors that stop me from drifting too far away from the girl who thought a newspaper clipping was the most important thing in the world.

The room is still a mess, my mom is definitely gonna be annoyed in the morning, cause the "give away" pile is looking suspiciously thin. But that’s okay