Over the weekend of November 19th-20th, I finally tackled the hardest part of my storage unit- my Harry Potter collection/Funko Pop collection. I am so thankful I didn’t have to tackle this project alone as my boyfriend was there to help me because he knew this would be hard on me for multiple reasons.

For starters, I am a sentimental person. As hard as I try not to be, I am. So gifts given to me by people carry an emotional attachment to me, especially the people I’m closest to. I still have a dolphin necklace that my parents gave me when I was 12 and I will never get rid of it because it means that much to me. I have photographs, letters, and so much more that I haven’t parted with for one sentimental reason or another….

But with this sentimentality comes a harder side- when that person who gave you these things is no longer in your life and even though you love the item, looking at it makes you feel physically ill or sad. The items you once loved become a physical reminder of how much that person hurt you and instead of it filling you with joy, it impacts you space and health negatively. A lot of the stuff I’ve had packed away for over a year were physical representations of the pain I felt from my last relationship.

So many of the Funko Pops and other Harry Potter items I had were bought for by my ex or I purchased them with my own money at my ex’s insistence because as he once put it “These items seem to make you happy, I don’t.” And he was right- after a certain point in our relationship the items surrounding me made me feel more loved and comforted than he did (and that’s because those items weren’t accusing me of things, constantly on me about money and work, and various other reasons). Most of these items were bought to make me feel better because my ex didn’t truly understand how to deal with my mental health. They were bought to give me an emotion that he should have been making me feel- happiness. He didn’t understand what I needed to be loved and admittedly, I probably didn’t do the best job of explaining that to him. Miscommunication hurts relationships and it definitely hurt ours, but I’ve learned and grown from that experience. If you read my book review on The Five Love Languages, then you know receiving gifts isn’t one of my love languages (though it is something I appreciate).

Then with this comes another emotional baggage- my insecurities. I’ve never considered myself a likable or charismatic person. I’ve always found myself to be off putting and kind of boring. A lot of that does stem from negative talk that came from peers and other people I’ve encountered throughout my life. So what did I do? I hid myself in the place I felt safest- Harry Potter… and I let that overtake every single aspect of my life, especially my personality. Meet a new person? I ask them about their Hogwarts house or favorite character. If they don’t know, don’t have one, or don’t care, then I’m screwed because I had no clue what else to talk to them about. I’ve basically let myself become known for my love of Harry Potter. Whenever anyone buys me something, 99.8% of the time it’s something Harry Potter themed. Except for maybe my parents, my best friends, and my boyfriend, very few other people buy me things that aren’t Harry Potter related. Even my roommate’s son picked out something Harry Potter related for me as a get better soon present after getting a tooth removed. She tried to steer him in another direction, but he was absolutely insistent my present had to be Harry Potter themed… he’s only 3.

It has taken a lot for me to realize that I’ve basically spent my life hiding myself behind a book shaped book because I didn’t feel secure with myself. It has taken me a lot to realize that where I wasn’t secure about talking about myself, I was always entirely sure talking about Harry Potter. I hid myself in this fictional magical world because the real world didn’t (and admittedly still doesn’t most days) feel like a place where I belonged. I’ve loved Harry Potter for the past 21 years of my life, and I will still love Harry Potter until the day I die… but I don’t need my house to look like a HP merchandise threw up all over it!

Also, I can’t justify keeping all these items anymore. If my blog was strictly Harry Potter related or I was a Harry Potter YouTuber who constantly needs to buy products to review or have in the background of videos, then I could justify it… but as I am none of those things, for the next phase of my life, keeping all these things doesn’t make sense for me. There’s also plenty of other things I love that deserve a place in my life and I need to make room for those. So with my boyfriend’s help (though admittedly he was just there for emotional support and to move boxes), I went through three or four giant boxes of Harry Potter items and was left with one or two. All of my Harry Potter books stayed (I collect more than just the series books. I have art books, the school books, making of etc). Most of my Noble Collection replicas stayed as they are high quality and great display pieces (though I wanted to part with one but my boyfriend insisted I keep it because he liked it… and he knows basically nothing about Harry Potter, so this shocked me). A huge majority of the Funko Pops I let go of. I’m not sure how many I kept, but I let go of more than I kept. My boyfriend dislikes Funkos and would have preferred they all went, but he understood that some of them are going to be harder for me to let go of than others, and he was super patient with me as we went through this process. There were a few times he asked me if I wanted to stop or take a break, but I told him we needed to do as much a possible before I lost momentum.

Games, puzzles, other miscellaneous Harry Potter stuff left my collection as well. Near the end of this declutter, I actually started to feel a bit disgusted with myself because I had so much stuff and none of it was bringing me any joy. Some items I took a look at and immediately put them in the get rid of box because I couldn’t stand to look at them. I wasn’t just removing the physical clutter that served no purpose from my life- I was also removing the emotional clutter that has held me back for almost three years, and I needed that. I can’t keep holding onto the stagnant and toxic energy that came from my last relationship and letting it pollute my life and my new relationship. I can’t move forward and heal if I surround myself with negative representations of my past.

So I let it go… 4 giant boxes full of Harry Potter items and other stuff I came across that no longer serve me any purpose.

Since I originally wrote this post (which was back in November and I fully intended to have posted back then, but ya know life happens…) I’ve gotten rid of even more stuff. 4 huge boxes of things went to Goodwill. Everything else I decided was worth keeping to sell is currently stacked in a a corner of the bedroom while I post them online and sell them. There have been a few items I struggled with parting with, but when the woman who purchased it from me thanked me and said it would make her daughter’s Christmas to receive that item, it made me feel better because this item was going to someone who would love it as much as I had. It’s a moment like that that makes the journey I went on worth it.

So the New Year is almost upon us and I will have four other posts coming up this week, so keep an eye out for those! I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!