It seems like the more at home I feel at college, the more I outgrow my room at home. Or maybe it's just that I’m growing up in general, and because I haven’t done that while living in that room, it seems to belong to the me of the past. It has become a storing grounds for the things I don’t need with me at school, and the memories I made before it. Sleepovers… friendships… conversations… I have never known another room than this one.
My walls are bright pink and green. At one time, there was a Lizzie McGuire border that matched them (not ashamed of that). When I had my room painted this color, white walls would’ve been my worst nightmare. Bright pink is kind of my worst nightmare now, and I know what my neighbor was talking about when he said he didn’t know how I could sleep there because its so bright. A girl who loved anything neon, anything American Girl Dolls, Disney Channel, and dancing picked that out. A girl who had no worries of the future past her spelling test the next day… what a different girl that was.
The pictures on the wall are filled with people I see rarely and miss dearly… I have a wall of mismatched frames in that room that are filled with memories from grade school. Many of those people will likely stay there -- in the past, as a dear memory, and a part of my life at a very particular and specific point. The roles they all played in my life were not small by any means. They impacted my life at a point in which I was more impressionable than any other, so I am so glad it was those people who did so. The girl in those pictures was laughing always, never worried about how goofy she might look because she was with people she loved.
Sports pictures hang on my wall, too, along with trophies and medals sitting around, and 4-H plaques hanging in a row. All proof that I, at one time, would dive into any new sport for no real reason at all. That girl didn’t care if she was good at it or not. She had an opportunity to try something and she would. That girl took more chances and cared a lot less about silly things.
There is a bookshelf filled with books I’ve read and books I want to read. I used to sit in that room and go through those books quicker than anything else I did. There are books on those shelves that were among the first chapter books I ever read, books that taught my young mind, that sparked a love for the creative side of life. When I left for school, I left those books behind for textbooks that I read at a slug’s pace. There are still books sitting there that I crave to read, but I never seem to have the time. I want so badly to pick up a book for fun. The girl who read books would carry them with her everywhere. She craved the words on their pages, and her life was forever changed because she learned to love writing in those pages she read.
She’s still inside me though. I may not want bright walls, but I look for the bright side of things, for a future that is full of promise, and for words that will create a smile. I may not see the people that shaped me much, but I carry the lessons taught by them with me everyday. I still take pictures with a crazy face from laughing and honestly, they’re secretly kind of my favorite because of the pure joy they show. I still love and crave adventure, but I now want to explore and see all that I can in city that I live in right now… to know it and to love it. I wish I could say I still make times for books that I actually want to read, but that’s still just a work in progress. I do still get to write, though. The love for literature and the written word that those books filled me with still runs very deep inside of me. I look up the amazing minds that created the worlds my young mind go to travel to because of their talent and way with words.
When I stay in my room at home, it does not feel the same. It feels very, very different to carry in my duffel bags filled with what I’ll need for my stay and to use blankets I haven’t in weeks or months. It is less owned by me, and more so owned by my memories, my lessons, my hopes and prayers of a girl I didn’t leave behind, but of girl I took with me and helped mold into who I am now. I am not a new person. I am very much made of the many pieces of myself that I obtained through those years. However, I am new in the ways that I have grown. I do so every day, some days more so than others. My room doesn’t have to be a physical space, I’ve realized. My room is the space I spend that moment becoming the next version of myself, where I am learning lessons for my future. It is where I carry my joy, my love for life, and my past and future with me.
