Sweet Victory

After what's felt like an eternity, I've finally done it. I've finally managed to convince my sister to move her clothes out of the closet in my room. Victory!

Since I was about 5, I've shared a room with my sister in my San Bruno home. Needless to say, two girls can acquire a lot of stuff over the course of 18 years. Now, she lived in that room by herself when we first moved in, so she's had a longer claim to the room than I. Plus the fact that we're 8 years apart, she had more personal possessions and clothing than I when i was 5. Long story short, the closet in our room has always been "her closet."

I think back in November of 2003, she moved to San Jose with her fiancee at the time. She and Loren have been living there ever since, slowly acquiring furniture and all the necessities of a real home. Even though they have a 3 bedroom home and each of them have their own storage bedrooms complete with closets in each to store all their junk, my sister has not moved the other third of her wardrobe out of the closet in my room. That is, until this past Sunday.

Since moving in back home after graduation, i've been struggling to figure out where to put all my clothes. A few years ago, my parents bought a wardrobe for all of my stuff since my sister left no room for me in the closet. When i took a look at my wardrobe upon moving back home, it was stuffed with my dad's shirts. Fine, i'll put my stuff in my sister's closet. Right? Wrong. That was stuffed with my brother's clothing. An hour later, I shifted everyone's clothing to their own closets to make room for my own. However, since i lack drawers, i sadly still haven't emptied out my giant garbage bags full of my clothing. In a conversation with Jonny last night:

Me: Sadly, I still have all my clothes in the blue garbage bags. And it's not even the light blue bags. It's those bright blue bags that make it obvious when you pass by my room that "hey, she's got garbage bags in her room."
Jonny: Wait, what about your laundry?
Me: What?
Jonny: What do you do about your freshly washed laundry? Do you fold them up and put them back in the garbage bags?
Me: *sigh* Yeah.

Anyway, on Sunday, my sister came home for dinner, and afterwards, i marched her over to our closet, presented her with two bags (one for her, one for charity), and asked her to empty out her clothing. She was actually really cooperative, which is surprising considering she had said an hour earlier that she was leaving. "If you're so willing to do this now, why didn't you move your clothes out earlier?" To which she replied, "Because mom didn't want me to." Regardless, she got out the majority of her clothes, but still has a few piles to go.

The next day, i was eating dinner with my family when I realized something, which i promptly told my dad: "It's taken her 9 months to finally do as I asked her on her wedding day," in reference to my toast at her wedding back in October. I thought it was amusing, but my parents didn't seem as excited about her moving out the last of her clothes from my room. At which point, my dad said, "You know, it's sometimes a good thing to leave some clothes back at home in case she ever decides to come back."

"Uhm, she's been moved out for 3 years now. Don't you think she's decided by now that she likes Loren enough to spend the rest of her life with him?"

"Well, to her, leaving her clothes here could be a sign of ties back to here. If she moves all her stuff out, it's as though she's breaking all her ties with her family, which we don't want."

"But knowing her, leaving clothing at home isn't because she wants to maintain ties at home. It's because she's too lazy to fill up her own home with junk."

I do have to admit though, my dad brought up a good point. Does leaving our junk at home secretly mean for us that we belong there? That home is where our stuff is? Is it an excuse to go home every now and then? To retrieve this and that? As much as our parents complain and nag us to clean up or throw out our stuff, do they deep down want our stuff there to reassure them that we remember them? Is it mutually welcomed bait for us to go home? Would our parents feel abandoned or forgotten if we moved all of our stuff out of their house? Think about it. Feel free to comment on it -- I'd be interested to hear/read your thoughts.

Finally, in reference to my wedding toast earlier, I'm attaching it below because I'm so dang proud of it. I practiced that thing for countless hours, executed it perfectly, and to this day, can still say the whole thing word for word (yes, i know i'm a nerd). Enjoy!

My sister (the bride), and me, the maid of honor (and only bridesmaid)

"Hello everyone and thank you for coming today. My name is Evelyn and I’m Lana’s little sister. Coming from a family of only three kids, two of which are girls, in a 3 bedroom home, naturally, the daughters will share a room. Soo, Lana was my first and longest running roommate. Now, since there’s an 8-year difference between us, we were always experiencing different things at different times. For example, I’d want to play Monopoly or UNO, and she’d just want to finish her Physics homework.

But despite all that, we both grew up. I went to high school, she graduated from college and started a new job. I was learning Algebra, and she was getting to know who would become the fine gentleman sitting next to her today.

I can’t quite remember my first occasion meeting Loren, but I do remember my first impression: “Wow. He loves Biology.” But joking aside, over the past few years, I’ve come to see what a good match they make. And after living with them every other day last summer, I’ve also seen the cozy home they’ve made for themselves, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

So, to Loren: Welcome officially to the family!

And to Day-Day: From the days of “Evelyn, get me my slippers,” to “Evelyn, let’s go shopping!” to “Evelyn, you want to be my bridesmaid,” thank you for being my first best friend, and for always watching over and taking care of me. Now please move your stuff out of my closet☺

To a long, happy, fruitful marriage! Cheers!"