I Enjoy To Read A Lot (Andrew J. Clark, circa 1991)

I spent the day cleaning out my old bedroom, and as I expected, it turned into a sweeping walk down memory lane. I knew this would happen. So let me tell you, if you find yourself on the verge of cleaning out your room, follow this simple rule: Steel yourself. There is a certain degree of mercilessness that must go along with going through things from your past, particularly your childhood. If you're like me, you want to hold onto a lot of things that you really have no need for and will likely never put to use again. Part of you just likes to know that it's there, that you still have it, even if you don't think about it for years at a time. But I approached this day with the purpose of getting rid of things of this nature, and it was as difficult as I thought it would be.

It was bittersweet going through my childhood for what probably will be the last time. On one hand, it was really cool to go through the stuff and see what I was doing, the kinds of things I saved, and generally just re-living a lot of those years. But at the same time, it was hard because I knew I had to let go of most of the stuff and move on. "Putting away the childish things..." and all that. Even though I put them away awhile ago. I just didn't get rid of them.

I decided to save only those things that meant the most and encapsulated those times of my life. It was great to be a kid for a day and lose myself in the icons of my youth: Old issues of "The Dino Times", the dinosaur newspaper for which my grandmother bought me a subscription when I was five, a plethora of Star Wars action figures, old sketchbooks with probably the worst-drawn pictures known to man, scribblings of stories I wrote when I was in the seventh grade, and some old poster that I had to make for a school project, on which I had to tell my class about myself, and upon which I wrote under a picture of a book, "I enjoy to read a lot". Hence the title of this blog. I know I was only about 7 or 8 when I wrote it, but still, should I have really sounded like a Korean exchange student at that age? Something to ponder.

My room still has much to go through, in preparation for my move back to Ohio in a few months (another thing I'm not sure I want to think about right now), and it will likely take at least another full day to get everything cleared and gone through.

I was thinking, as I was hauling three huge garbage bags full of my childhood to the street for the garbage man to come pick up and tote away to oblivion in the morning, things were a lot simpler back then. Sure I had to be a man and go to school every day, but when I got home, it was time for LEGOs, AND STAR WARS action figures, and JURASSIC PARK, and BASEBALL CARDS, and COMIC BOOKS, and just general coolness. I had no worries. I remember running around in the backyard for hours and hours pretending I was fighting the Terminator. Everything was so clear back then.

Of course that was before the two things that haunt men the most came into my life to screw everything up: Money and women. Both necessary. Both impossibly difficult.

I think mankind would be a whole lot better off if everyone just reverted back to playing with dinosaurs and fighting the Terminator in our backyards.