Status: 2nd Place. I'm pretty proud of myself. Comments Please =)
Memories.
Memories
I sit on my bed with my legs folded and tucked under a heavy duvet, looking around at the room which I had grown up in. The room that had witnessed many tantrums and cuddles and kisses and hugs. The room which first started out as a nursery, the walls and floors pristine white and new. Each pair of baby booties were sitting perfectly aligned in order. The new, never worn jumpers and baby-gros were hanging in the wardrobe ready for a little body to fill them up. Then suddenly after nearly twenty odd years later the walls are painted in a dark red and covered in notes and posters and pictures. It is a dramatic change from the room which once held stuffed animals and pictures of baby lambs all jumping in the air.
My gaze skims over to the suitcases and boxes all lined up against the wall, waiting to be deposited into the car. This time tomorrow they'll be in my new house. My new bedroom. Though, that new bedroom will never be quite like this bedroom. It won’t have that same homely feeling, that sense of privacy and safety I’ve felt since the time that I could remember this room. The feeling of belonging and being your own self. No, now I’m going to be moving to a new place and sharing a bedroom with another person. I will no longer will have a secret place to hide my private and personal things. A place where I know it won’t be found by someone else, knowing that it’s secure there.
I bounce gently on my bed, reliving and remembering the times when I used to jump up and down on it when I was younger. I smile distantly as I remember being told off by my parents for jumping on the bed so boisterously, but doing it again soon after I’d been told off. I looked at the pictures and paintings that I’d drawn at school over the years. They almost substituted as my wallpaper. I turn to look at the shelf that are now bare. The shelves which were once filled with old baby paraphernalia and discarded dolls and toys and old school books.
The innocent baby blue and pink wallpapers had soon been taken over by the dark colours that reflected what I had felt in my heart. The murky browns and creams on my wall were the result of a very messed up person. The wall opposite my bed still has the same paint. It somehow matched the dark red surround the walls. It reminds me off how desperate I was about fitting in at school, wearing all the latest fashions, keeping up with various TV programs. On the outside I fronted a confident persona, but on the inside I was desperate to fit in, but I just didn‘t let anyone see it. It was that lingering doubt that I would always feel when I went shopping and when i would pick up an item of clothing, a CD, or a piece of jewellery: Will everyone else like this? Is it too weird? My parents were very confused when I’d said that I wanted the walls of my bedroom to be brown. Why not blue or white or yellow? they had questioned. It was my room and my choice though at the end. I liked the way it looked. I felt safe. It was my own personal haven. The one place where I didn’t want to fit in, or where I didn’t need to fit in.
I’d spent time painting the creams into the dark brown paint, it was my little project. The outcome of my hard work paid off. I felt proud of my room. I’d created a little haven, in which I rarely ventured out of my room. I had everything I needed in there. I felt happy. It needed to look good since it was the room in which me and my friends spent the most time in, talking and laughing and crying. The same room in which I got ready for my prom at the end of Year 11.
When it came time to go to university, I picked one nearby. I felt that it would be better staying at home rather than wasting extra money on accommodation. There was no point in shelling out more money. And when that time came, I stayed out. I rarely was at home. I was with my friends enjoying the university life, living and trying to act sophisticated, but all my friend knew that once we were away from the eyes of our fellow peers we would revert back to our silly teenage selfs, singing along to old pop tunes and generally discussing the former teen idols that we all used to obsess about.
But now the time has come. I’m in this room for the last time. I step out of my warm bed and tiptoe around the room, my feet feeling cold on the laminate flooring. My hands glide over the various objects that are placed in the room. My heart feels just like the wardrobe that is still overflowing with all my old clothes. I look around, staring at each object in the room. It’s almost as if I’m trying to commit them to memory, even though I know this room so well that if I close my eyes, I can imagine everything in its exact place. I walk over to the desk that had been strategically placed in front of the window. I lean against the desk and I look around the room.
Yes, I had moved out a long time ago and moved in with my long term boyfriend, but that was only for a couple of months. I still came back home during the weekends or weekdays, to see my parents and sisters. Up until now this had been my room. It belonged to me and no one else could take that from me.
But when you get married, you’re a different person somehow. You have to leave your parent’s house to start a new life with your husband. You have a fresh start. A new home. A new bedroom. A place to fill with more memories, but this time, you can share them with someone else and create them as well. It will hurt me so very badly to leave this room, though. The room has seen so much of me. It’s a big part of me. I’ve grown up here , from an infant who needed help walking to an adult who can now take on the world by herself. I pull out the chair at the desk and sink in to it whilst gazing around the room again. It’s a part of me that I won’t forget because I’ve left so much here.
I will never forget it.
My gaze skims over to the suitcases and boxes all lined up against the wall, waiting to be deposited into the car. This time tomorrow they'll be in my new house. My new bedroom. Though, that new bedroom will never be quite like this bedroom. It won’t have that same homely feeling, that sense of privacy and safety I’ve felt since the time that I could remember this room. The feeling of belonging and being your own self. No, now I’m going to be moving to a new place and sharing a bedroom with another person. I will no longer will have a secret place to hide my private and personal things. A place where I know it won’t be found by someone else, knowing that it’s secure there.
I bounce gently on my bed, reliving and remembering the times when I used to jump up and down on it when I was younger. I smile distantly as I remember being told off by my parents for jumping on the bed so boisterously, but doing it again soon after I’d been told off. I looked at the pictures and paintings that I’d drawn at school over the years. They almost substituted as my wallpaper. I turn to look at the shelf that are now bare. The shelves which were once filled with old baby paraphernalia and discarded dolls and toys and old school books.
The innocent baby blue and pink wallpapers had soon been taken over by the dark colours that reflected what I had felt in my heart. The murky browns and creams on my wall were the result of a very messed up person. The wall opposite my bed still has the same paint. It somehow matched the dark red surround the walls. It reminds me off how desperate I was about fitting in at school, wearing all the latest fashions, keeping up with various TV programs. On the outside I fronted a confident persona, but on the inside I was desperate to fit in, but I just didn‘t let anyone see it. It was that lingering doubt that I would always feel when I went shopping and when i would pick up an item of clothing, a CD, or a piece of jewellery: Will everyone else like this? Is it too weird? My parents were very confused when I’d said that I wanted the walls of my bedroom to be brown. Why not blue or white or yellow? they had questioned. It was my room and my choice though at the end. I liked the way it looked. I felt safe. It was my own personal haven. The one place where I didn’t want to fit in, or where I didn’t need to fit in.
I’d spent time painting the creams into the dark brown paint, it was my little project. The outcome of my hard work paid off. I felt proud of my room. I’d created a little haven, in which I rarely ventured out of my room. I had everything I needed in there. I felt happy. It needed to look good since it was the room in which me and my friends spent the most time in, talking and laughing and crying. The same room in which I got ready for my prom at the end of Year 11.
When it came time to go to university, I picked one nearby. I felt that it would be better staying at home rather than wasting extra money on accommodation. There was no point in shelling out more money. And when that time came, I stayed out. I rarely was at home. I was with my friends enjoying the university life, living and trying to act sophisticated, but all my friend knew that once we were away from the eyes of our fellow peers we would revert back to our silly teenage selfs, singing along to old pop tunes and generally discussing the former teen idols that we all used to obsess about.
But now the time has come. I’m in this room for the last time. I step out of my warm bed and tiptoe around the room, my feet feeling cold on the laminate flooring. My hands glide over the various objects that are placed in the room. My heart feels just like the wardrobe that is still overflowing with all my old clothes. I look around, staring at each object in the room. It’s almost as if I’m trying to commit them to memory, even though I know this room so well that if I close my eyes, I can imagine everything in its exact place. I walk over to the desk that had been strategically placed in front of the window. I lean against the desk and I look around the room.
Yes, I had moved out a long time ago and moved in with my long term boyfriend, but that was only for a couple of months. I still came back home during the weekends or weekdays, to see my parents and sisters. Up until now this had been my room. It belonged to me and no one else could take that from me.
But when you get married, you’re a different person somehow. You have to leave your parent’s house to start a new life with your husband. You have a fresh start. A new home. A new bedroom. A place to fill with more memories, but this time, you can share them with someone else and create them as well. It will hurt me so very badly to leave this room, though. The room has seen so much of me. It’s a big part of me. I’ve grown up here , from an infant who needed help walking to an adult who can now take on the world by herself. I pull out the chair at the desk and sink in to it whilst gazing around the room again. It’s a part of me that I won’t forget because I’ve left so much here.
I will never forget it.