There’s supposed to be a feeling of relief as I swept away all the dust, cleared all the unwanted items, marked things for sale or to charity.

And yet, I sit in my room looking at what I have left and wonder, am I supposed to feel comfort now?

There is comfort, yes, in the feeling that I have scoured all my belongings. That now I generally know where everything is. There isn’t items hiding beneath untouched drawers for years, which was the case until Wednesday when I had ambitiously decided to empty everything out, push to my hallway.

My room is more organized than it has ever been. Or ever. Even when I moved into my apartment, I arrived with boxes and never quite filed them away. Yet for once, my desk is uncluttered (at least to the best of its ability) and my floor is actually walkable. But there is something missing.

This is all spurred when I went to a friend’s housewarming party. I admired her roommate’s decorations in the living room. “Nothing here is mine,” she said.

I loved the (useless) branches sitting on a chest pulled up to the third-floor apartment with scuffs and dents in the black paint. I loved the frames and the way it sat with the potted plants. I loved a vintage poster of a train falling off the cliff and drawn characters crying in surprise. Envy filled my heart, and I desperately wanted that.

So I went home, searched on Yerdle, browsed on Etsy. But I was stumped. Is that who I am? To have uncluttered surrounded by useless items?

A friend once proudly showed her home. Along the wall in her kitchen, four small vases hung. One held a fresh flower. “Why?” I said, alluding to the fact that she would have to get a newly cut flower every week.

“Because it makes me feel happy,” she replied.

I didn’t buy it then, but now, I sort of buy it. Well at least for the guest. For me, when I see freshly cut flowers, it reminds me of the effort to get it, the need to refresh it every week, and that the flower will die soon. I may be practical, but there’s some emotion behind everything, to have things that are meaningful.

Right now, I am delighted with the newly acquired purple mini shelf (that was free) where I have filled with my proud random tchotchkes. In one, there’s a collection of classic paperbacks—my favorite novels like The Stranger, Golden Apples in the Sun, and How to Win Friends and Influence People. Another holds variations of sackboy from Little Big Planet. Another holds small rectangular pieces of metal that have welded “<3" and "jenn". Yet another houses karts of various mario kart characters and amiibos. Yet another still displays my "art project" from a "gifted and talented" program from high school—prose based on The Catcher in the Rye and accompanying "lonely" photos. I look at the things there and finger some of them, letting my fingers rub over the smoothness, the roughness. I let myself wonder in admiration. It is, after all, making me happy.