While you were never really my room, you’ve somehow etched a place for yourself in my heart. It’s a little strange when I think about it, there’s nothing particularly special about you. Your plywood walls were far too thin, you radiator always rattled and never worked quite right, and you were always at an uncomfortable temperature whenever the weather hit above 68 degrees. You’re just the same as the room to the left of you, and the room above that one, and the room to the right of it, so why is it that when it was time to leave I was met with tears? Why is it that when I closed the door to a room that wasn’t even mine, I felt like I was leaving a part of myself in there too?
I think of you in three parts. The first being summertime. I wasn’t too familiar with you at first, I kept to myself and made sure I never overstayed my welcome. Always sitting neatly on the bed that looked freshly made next to the window. Never making a point to make myself too comfortable because I didn’t ever expect to stay long. Those days were filled with my frigidness, my stiffness, with my inability to relax because you were new. Along with everything else. Yet despite my discomfort, I found that there was something with you that I could not find anywhere else. Not even in my own room could I find this thing, this feeling. I couldn’t quite put it into words just yet, so I kept that thought at the back of my mind and kept coming back to you.
It must’ve been around October when I realized something had shifted with you and I. I was becoming more familiar with you, I always seemed to find myself waiting outside your door for someone to let me in after I’d finished my classes. I wouldn’t go back to my own room because going back to you felt more fitting. It was in those days where I would begin to laze around the beds and chairs as though they were my own. I stayed over often, sometimes packing my things to spend days on end with you. And even when I didn’t stay over, I always stayed as late as I could, taking the last bus every single night just so that I could be there a little bit longer. I remember those nights vividly and while they were not so long ago, they feel as though they are distant memories that I could never recreate. I recall how many nights were filled with laughter, the loud and obnoxious kind that would have surely been heard from down the hall. It was like a never-ending time of sharing stories and jokes and other small things throughout the day that were memorable enough to spare our words for. I remember how some nights though, were spent much quieter. I like to think of those ones often, I like to think of how I felt safe sharing my story within the comforts of your walls. Because while those walls were thin, they never made me feel exposed. I knew that you could keep my secrets as I would keep yours. And so our days together turned to nights until they eventually all blended together.
I think you saw the most of me during spring. While you literally saw me more, you also saw sides of me that I never thought I would dare to show. I remember the first time I showed you, I was scared because I couldn’t face rejection again, not so soon. But instead of that, I was met with warmth. Your walls kept me from shivering on the spring nights that were a little too cold. I remember how on some nights when I didn’t want to sleep alone in my own room, I would come and stay with you. And I think of how on those nights my worries seemed to melt away as we greeted the night with even more laughter and banter than before. I think of the vulnerability that I came to you with and the acceptance that you showed me in return. I think of it all the time, now more than ever.
I think that while our time together was brief, it was also beautiful. You have seen many versions of me in such a short amount of time, you have watched me change in tandem with the seasons. You understood that the person who I first opened the door as, was not the same one who closed it. So as I speak to you for one last time, I thank you for your walls that held me through it all.