Clearing out Tetrominoes & Unboxing

October 28, 2025 by Rubynnastory

This year has been a year of playing Tetris with boxes. Stacked up by the door, hidden in the storage room or out in the middle of the living room floor because I got tired of moving them.

Our previously very consistent life was uprooted when we were asked to leave our house because the landlord sold it, which is great for him, he was trying the whole time we were there, so well done. For us, we bubble wrapped and built boxes. In between packing up things into Dell boxes, we were looking for a new place to live, this time buying a little piece of Bangkok we can call ours. We found a place and it fell through. We found another and it fell through. Sealing more boxes.

Due to the entry delay, we moved the boxes and ourselves to my parent’s temporarily, while making sure we found a place that didn’t leave us hanging like the first two. We pretty much lived out of boxes, so we didn’t have to fully unpack and repack again, rotating Tetris pieces of life while still looking for a new place.

We finally found one that was the perfect compromise for Mark and I, a small balcony for me and my plants, a view of the river for Mark. The space is lovely and it is further out of the city than we’d hoped for but a good location nonetheless. We made a hard drop and moved the boxes into the new place.

3 months in and we are still unboxing, making combos and clearing our the lines. The packing and unpacking made me realise the absurdity of things and how much of it we have. I mean don’t get me wrong I am part of the remake group and I already know how much stuff there is in landfills and I definitely play my part in not buying new unless truly necessarily. Then how did I still have so much stuff? Stacks of boxes. Boxes that crawled into little corners I didn’t know existed in the new place. Boxes that held tinier boxes of more tat. Boxes that hung around until 3 days ago.

A lot of it, I have to admit is from 10-20 years ago. So this year I cleared out things that didn’t have value to me anymore and I was ruthless, finally (I guess you could extend that to people as well). The more boxes I gave away or very responsibly recycled/threw away, the clearer my mind became. I guess I came out of this realising, clearing lines was a true clearing of mind.

While downstacking, I found space for the new. I kept making combos and kept clearing lines, until I didn’t feel too heavy anymore. New space for the more exciting Tetrominoes, the ‘T’ and the ‘Z’s slowly came to me, and I found time to try new things.

I started self-learning animation and have been dabbling very minimally with Procreate. Having to understand the angles, the shapes while moving an object and turning it into animation. The unboxing has been super enlightening and I highly recommend it if you have felt cluttered, felt like you were running out of space, the stacks are too high and there is little space left for your next Tetromino. Unbox the things, flatten the cardboard and recycle them responsibly.

Below are the few animations I have been playing around with, the chopsticks are super fun and honestly they do roll away whenever I place them on a plate.