Rearranging Furniture

I don't have any "before" pictures, but this is what my room looks like after a solid day of cleaning, vacuuming, and rearranging. Over the years, it has become clear that the state of my room at any given time mirrors the state of my life as a whole. If I'm still hanging onto old junk that is no longer useful, keeping costumes from characters I never want to play again... well, you get the picture. A good room cleaning/furniture rearranging session is a statement that I am ready for a fresh start.
Now (for the first time) I have what I have needed for years: two desks. One is for computer work and the other for writing, editing, answering letters, et cetera. The writing desk is inherited from my namesake Eleanor McLoughlin, and it sat in a back room of her Park Slope brownstone for years without ever being used. When I opened it the first time, there was a newspaper folded inside with news about Roosevelt's presidency. Nope, not FDR— the other Roosevelt.

In contrast, the computer desk used to be a peeling, bruised purple color... and I am pretty sure that my mother found it at the side of the road. I finally got around to sanding it down and painting it a much more acceptable dusty green color, and it will now serve its purpose rather well.
I also moved my bed into the window alcove. All of these changes— plus the slow and continuing migration of my books from a storage locker in Frankfort to my 4 bookcases— make the room feel my own again. It was a guest room for the past 4 years, complete with stuffy floral bedding, wicker bookcases, stodgy lamps, and whatever washed up from the rest of the house... as if some strange tide carried all the downstairs detritus up here and then retreated, leaving boxes of unidentifiable electrical cords, paperwork, glasses cases, broken walkmen, lampshades,and a crock pot under my bed. No more! I have now, for better or for worse, put some sort of energy and effort into living at home. Oddly, this makes me feel several steps closer to leaving.