Son's room

The bed I gave him was a wooden framed futon with a full-sized black mattress but all one can see of this is one side of the wooden frame closest to the wall where an inexplicable and largely inaccessible hole exists in the mess reaching all the way to the floor – only a few wrappers here and a couple of other pieces of trash. The rest of the bed is more of the same scattered blankets, clothing, and pillows. The desk is recognizable thanks to the computer monitor and keyboard, but these are crowded as well by piles of papers and unopened mail. A standing lamp rises disdainfully out of the boxes and bundles piled up against one wall that hasn’t moved since we moved here more than a year ago and a TV set peeks out from under yet more clothes slung over its top as if it were awaiting valet. I don’t dare peek in the closet for fear of what monsters might exist in there.
At one point in time, I would have thrown a fit for him allowing his living space to become such a danger zone but over the years I have determined that I have other things to spend my energy on. He is uncomfortable in his room but I am allowing him to discover on his own the joy and the relaxation available when one can simply rest in their own quiet, private, clean space – something not at all possible in the room’s current state forcing him to frequently invade his cleaner sister’s room or vacate the house altogether in order to find a place to relax. As long as he keeps his door closed so none of his disasters spills into the rest of the house and he avoids destroying the rest of the house as he has his room, I try to stay out of his business. He had an entire childhood of having to keep his room clean; now that he’s a teenager, it’s time for him to choose when he wants to actually grow up and take care of his belongings.