We all have things that we struggle with. Some of us have a hard time with saving money, keeping a social life, studying, or even just keeping our room cleaned. Unfortunately, for me, I struggle with all of those things (especially keeping my room clean, just ask my mother). So, after weeks of constant nagging I finally decided to get down to business and just clean. After all there are only so many times you can say “Yes, mom” before you start to go insane.

Honestly, I can say I was very proud of my progress that I made within the first ten-ish minutes of cleaning. But then boredom struck, and so I turned on some music and proceeded to dance around my room like an idiot while belting out the songs that came on my Spotify (which range from EDM to Pop to even some Country and a few German Pop songs). Basically, I cleaned for ten minutes and then goofed off for a solid forty-five. Eventually I got back on track and started cleaning again. Eventually. I’m not going to lie I definitely went to Taco Bell (don’t judge, I had to celebrate Taco Tuesday).

Two days later I returned with motivation (my mom yelling at me) to actually clean my room. I started by getting the easy stuff out of the way. I grabbed a trash bag and just began to fill it with soda cans, wrappers, basically anything that deserved to be called trash (trust me, if I would have fit I would have put myself in the bag too). Then I began the tedious task of sorting through clean and dirty clothes, separating them, and then tossing the dirty ones in the hamper and folding the clean ones to be put back in the drawer. Then it came time to tackle my bookshelves. In my room I have three tall bookshelves that are usually the place I put things when I’m in a hurry and don’t want to sort through anything. The contents of these shelves range from actual books (old school, right?), my play scripts (there are tons of originals just in case I become famous and need to make extra money), letters, bills, and just quite honestly the most random trinkets ever.

Approaching my bookshelves gives me so much anxiety, which is usually why I just never even look at them. Yet, to make my room look presentable enough for my mother to be moderately pleased, I had to at least tidy them up a bit. Within mere seconds of grabbing a stack of papers from one of the shelves, my floor was flooded with papers that fell from a different shelf. Usually at this point I would have grunted and left the mess for a later day when I had motivation, but something caught my eye on the floor by my feet. It was an old essay I wrote in high school (sounding as if that was so long ago) titled “Below the Decaying Masts”. The assignment was to write a piece describing a scene without letting time pass. Here is just a brief excerpt from the piece:

“The barn stood erect as a skeleton of its former self. The support masts, built into the cold dark earth, stood and supported the fragile ceiling. The once grand testimony of man’s desire to contain, now is raised into the sky as a fraction of its former glory. All that is left is the bits of materials that were once apart of the masterful build. With time, the memory of the past has endured the tests of our world. However, man’s desires ate away at the world that was once in another’s possession. The fragmented walls that remained attached to the base had only a worn out red hue to them. A color similar to having left an object to bake under the sun’s cruel rays. Mother Nature had come to reclaim what was rightfully hers.”

Basically, I was attempting to describe a picture of an abandoned barn (the essay continues on for a few pages). Of course, just reading an old piece of writing of mine was enough to get me sidetracked from cleaning. I began picking up the papers, essays, stories, and more. I began reminiscing through the breakups, family problems, and really anything that I had written about. Something inside of me had ignited, and it wasn’t out of boredom, it was out of curiosity. I was finding pieces of writing that haven’t been moved for years, just waiting to be read again. Sure, some of them were pretty bad (I’m so sorry Ms. Pruessing that you had to read that murder mystery), but I was seeing my growth as a writer right before my eyes.

And then I remembered why I chose to write about that specific barn. I remembered the secret that was hidden in the meaning of those words. I set down the other papers and continued:

“Positioned themselves around the abandoned land, a field of flowers had bloomed. There is beauty masking the tragedy. The flowers, with all their grace, danced across the burnt landscape. Their ostentatious colors are appealing to the most gregarious sensory enthusiasts. For it is in their nature to adhere to our pleasantries. Mother Nature has a love that is ever enduring, even if it is for those who tread heavily and leave scars on her once great masterpiece.”

Unfortunately, we have things that happen in our past that are better off being pushed into the deep depths of our memory. And, as painful as these events may be to bring up, they are usually the memories that define who we were and set the path to who we would become.

“Below the decaying masts that held the remaining pieces of the structure together, stood a doorway. An entrance from the outside world into the depths of the caverns below. Trudging through the mush that was the cold earth below, one could easily become swallowed up by the relentless nature that is the darkness below. The doorway that led in the light to the darkness below symbolizes the nature for darkness to be vanquished by the light. It stands, barely in tact, as a reminder that we can never undo what has already been done. That the past will always leave its permanent remembrance upon our fragile selves. For the thousands of splinters that made up the door can no longer be put back together. Beneath the lonely arch was but an explosion of life. There was no longer any separation between man and nature.”

And then there are the memories that can cripple us. They can hurt you with the same magnitude they did when they were created. I took a step back and looked at the mess that accumulated over years on the bookshelves. I saw souvenirs from foreign countries (one was a little ICE train from Germany that I got from a kids meal), a stuffed animal who I loved as if it was real for many years of my childhood, a stack of old printed photos (“old” being used lightly since pretty much everything is now documented electronically), and so many more things that would seem absolutely useless to the next person but that meant so much to me. Because, through all the pain that I endured, these things symbolized the memories that would hold a special place in my heart.

“Above the dark and damp earth that sits below, perched high above are a series of dangling chains. Their clanky and clattering calls scream out into the eeriness of the darkness as they sway with every dead breeze and small rumble that stirs them from their slumber. Their rusty bodies seem to lifelessly encase the values that we once stored deep within the caverns that are foundations. The tattered barn would not be the same if it wasn’t for these grievances held deep within it. Forever they shall hang, until the day when they finally crumble and return once more, to the cold earth below. Their reddish brown crusted edges had merely encompassed the original shine that once was held by the chains.”

I will always remember the picture that this essay was written from. The assignment was to describe the scene in the image without letting time pass. We had to describe the scene the way it was. However, the barn wasn't the only thing in that photo. Walking around within the barn, past the field of flowers, in the basement near the chains, was a boy who was as frail and fragile and the barn itself. The photo was one taken by a friend of me walking through the barn. The entire essay was symbolism for the boy standing in the barn. During the time this was written, during the time of the photo, I was just merely the person who I later would become.

It was at that moment when I realized how many stories these bookshelves held. The books, plays, stories, and objects that found their home on these shelves were all pieces of who I am. If I were to die tomorrow, these shelves would hold my legacy. The timeline (not the Facebook kind) of my journey through this messy and beautiful thing we call life. After some organizing (so it wasn’t as messy as before), I placed the essays back onto the shelf. I reached for my wallet and removed the plane ticket that I always carry with me, the very first one I had for New York City, and placed it amongst the rest.

Life can honestly downright suck at times. We will face times when it feels as if all hope is lost. There will be times when we want to give up, to quit trying, and to surrender with a white flag raised high above the troubles. But we must continue fighting onward. The journey will hit thousands of rough patches along the way, but what defines a person are not only what obstacles they face, but the means they go to face those obstacles. Every morning I would wake up and walk past my bookshelves, never stopping to think about the journey. I would wake up and think of the obstacles rather than the things that resulted of overcoming them. And, as I sit next to my bookshelves as I am writing this, I can only wonder what else is sitting amongst the memories (because honestly I only sorted a few shelves, I’m not going to go all Merry Maids on my room).

Nobody knows what the future will hold. That is probably something that I bring up a lot in my writing because, well, the future is scary. People often ask me how I do some of the things I do in life, because I do a lot of traveling and moving and exploring. My response is simple, “A life lived in fear is no life to be lived at all.” I’m not sure if I heard that from somewhere (or if I was actually good enough to think that for myself), but it has become my life motto. Never let the things that scare you stop you from doing what you love.

Although, there is one time when I don’t use that as my life motto. And that’s right now, because my room is still not clean and my mom literally will go through the roof if she sees I haven’t made progress in two weeks (yeah guys, Taco Tuesday was two weeks ago, I’m serious I’m the worst at cleaning). So, I will leave you (if anyone even reads anything I write) with one final piece of advice:

Let whatever that may come, come. You’ll find a way. Never stop believing in yourself and the power that you have within you to light the way.

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Dedicated to my Aunt Marion whose last message to me before her passing still inspires me to this day to do what I love with passion and conviction that meets no boundaries. Thank you for all you taught me.