home

Living at home is truly a surreal experience after being away for a number of years. Quite a number of years actually. It hasn't been all that bad..I mean, moving from a one room cell to well, a fully furnished and fully stocked apartment where necessities like laundry and groceries are miraculously taken care of again..is..nice. Not to give the impression that I am completly mooching off my parents...But, this really was their idea. And the idea is that after I get a masters and a real job, I will be able to afford to live on my own and can finally self-sufficiently not live at home.

But, I digress. My original point was that the idea of living at home stirs quite a variety of emotions. Comfort, frustration, satisfaction, isolation..and reading that over, I realize I have just constructed my own set of oxymorans. But, that is the point. On one hand, I feel content to come home and know that I won't be completly alone pouring out a box of pasta for dinner and watching Seinfeld (not that there is anything wrong with that). I know that if I am feeling down, I will have someone to talk to who knows me better than anyone else in the world..and that is a good thing. But, other times, I feel so trapped. Like, just a few moments ago, I was walking from my bed to the window..which sometimes can be a momumental feat since the floor is usually covered in clothing, shoes, papers, bags..etc..This is especially dangerous in the dark. And in the process, I stepped on an old report of mine..old in the literal sense. This was a report I had written in fifth grade. It was a book report about the Galapogous Islands told from the point of a turtle that lived there. I remember having a great deal of fun combining all of my research from all the library books into the voice of this turtle. I even illustrated the book and I thought my drawing of the turtle was very cute. Anyway, I remember this report very clearly. I was proud of it and I think I did well on it. But, tonight, when I stepped on it, I was not feeling pride or accomplishment...on the contrary, I was suddenly filled with anger and frustration. Here I am trapped inside my childhood room where I cannot even successfully cross from one side to the other without trampeling on a piece of my past which is so far removed from my life in the present, which it should be since I am no longer in 5th grade!

The point I am trying to make in a circumvented sort of way is that I feel so stuck sometimes. Really downright stuck. My room has certaintly changed since I was a kid..yet it still has its remnants of hot pink furniture, abundant stuffed animals and fully furnished dollhouse, not to mention this archive of school book reports, research papers, old letters and photos encased in my overstocked and disorderly desk. And I am not one to throw these things away since they do mean something to me. They were pivotally important to me at one point and I still feel a sense of nostalgia looking back at them. I just wish I could stuff everything from the past into boxes and hide them away so that I can be 23 right now and not a kid in elementary school.

So, this is why I am going to move out soon. Well...soon as in not really very soon at all but in the scope of a lifetime..pretty soon..And my new home will represent my new life as an adult...and it will have a grown-up bed that isn't teeny tiny and a grown-up dresser and a grown-up cabinet to make files to put grown-up documents into and when I look into my grown-up mirror I will see me as an adult and not a child. Until I turn around and look at all my favorite stuffed animals on the bed:)

They come with me adult or not.