My Story: How Clutter, Chaos, and God’s Timing Led Me Here (Pt. 1)

Recently someone reminded me that our stories rarely make sense while we are living them. The clarity usually comes later. And looking back now, I can finally see how everything connected.

I am the daughter of immigrant parents who were privileged to be able to move to the United States when instability in their home country began putting our family in harm’s way. They didn’t have the luxury of easing into the decision and had to pack up fifty years of living. Fifty years of memories, history, belongings, culture, and identity. They brought everything they could manage to ship into a country they had never lived in before. It wasn’t a planned transition. It was survival, hope, and loss. And it was complicated.

A lot of those belongings ended up in storage units at first. Then some of it moved into a home. Then into another storage unit. Then into a garage. And over the years it became this ongoing rotation of boxes and bins and items that held memories too heavy to go through.

I didn’t understand it then. I just knew that every time I came home and walked through the garage full of stacked boxes, something inside me tightened. I felt overwhelmed, anxious, irritated, but had no idea why. 

My parents were trying to hold onto the pieces of the life they had to leave behind. But at the time, I didn’t see the emotional weight behind all those belongings. I only felt the pressure of it.

Looking back now, I can finally say it. All their stuff held trauma for me. Watching your parents start over from scratch? Seeing decades of their life suddenly packed into cardboard and plastic bins? Feeling the uncertainty in the air even when no one said anything out loud? It affects you. It shapes the way you relate to space and stuff and safety.

There was grief, fear, hope, survival, and loss in those boxes. All tucked inside the corners of our home. I carried that without even knowing it. I wish I knew then what I know now about clutter and mental health. I would have had so much more compassion for myself.

Especially because I was also living with undiagnosed ADHD. The same ADHD that shaped how I kept my own room. I always cared about aesthetics, yet my space was a blend of organization and overwhelm. A beautifully color-coded closet sitting next to a floor full of clothes. A mind full of intention but a body that froze at the simplest task.

It all makes sense today, but it didn’t then.

You can read Part 2 here.