Home.

Home. When I think of home I think of the place I am most comfortable: my room.  It looked a lot different than it does now, but it was a centering place for me. With soft white walls, a prickly popcorn ceiling, and a light beige carpet.  On a spring day, the window let in slivers of natural light, the AC on a low hum letting a stream of air into my room. On the right side of the square room, a white wood crib covered in quilts and stuffed animals.  On the opposite wall near the door, bunk beds painted a soft pink, green and white with matching covers decorated with flowers all ruffled up. These were no normal bunk beds but a miniature version for my doll’s nap time.  On the far wall next to the bunk beds a small plastic bright green and purple Little Tikes© desk. Passed down from my sister and after me a brother I am not aware of yet, the table covered in Crayola©️ markers and crayons, blank paper that had been drawing on with various childish ideas. On the far wall, quite a ways away from the desk was an air purifier, off for now. And my mom in her bedroom calling out every once in a while: “Are you doing okay!?̈”, while making her bed. 

“Fine!”,I’d shout while wondering why is she so worried?

This room is intertwined with so many memories. Those of a little girl just learning to walk ato a toddler with a newfound curiosity for animals and nature, to now a big girl trying to learn life and all its paths.  

No matter the journey I always came back to this place. When I was feeling low I cried, when feeling happy I danced and laughed all around the room.  I have a constant nostalgia for times like those: careless and free.  

I know now that the world is not what I thought, although I still want to believe it is. Now full of hardships and brokenness, I long for that room to center me to keep me happy and innocent, to keep me from the pain.  It is the same room now, but different; it doesn't remind me, it doesn‘t center me anymore like it should. Could it be because the room has changed since then? The carpet is a dark gray-brown, the whole house renovated so its memories are lost with it, the ceiling is flat like a plateau and not like popcorn ready to burst.  A weird haze, a type of grayish cloud lingers over the entire room unlike the white sunny gleam from the past.  

In this stage of my life with all the hustling and bustling from swim to school to swim again to finally home, at last, there is no time to really settle down and think and relax about how things have changed. At this point in my life, I for one don't have the place that stayed the same, that never changed; the one  I relied on that to well, keep me from going crazy.

But I can always look back on those videos of me laughing and playing and get a little wave of calm knowing that it existed: my centering place. A place where I felt comfortable and safe.  Now I have to find a new safe, never leaving place and It's hard but it has helped me be more grounded and down to earth. It helped me not be hectic or crazy but present in the moment, a place you will eventually come back to.