Alone In Her Room

I stood, one last time, alone in my room.  My desk, made by my father, sat along one wall.  Across from it were the bunk beds I had slept in since childhood.  My sister and I spent many long nights whispering secrets between ourselves.  I smiled as I saw myself jumping off the top bunk onto a pile of pillows below.  How we never broke anything was a mystery.  My walls looked bare without my pictures.  I had packed all my photos of friends and memories carefully.  My closet was half empty.  Mostly lonely hangers and the odds pieces of clothing that didn't make the cut.  This had been home for 18 years.  I knew the way the windows rattled during a storm, how the headlights from passing cars swept the room and made shadows dance on the walls, the way to turn the door knob so it wouldn't squeak and wake my parents.  I knew the room wasn't going anywhere; I was.  It would be waiting for me, ready to welcome me home for Christmas break and the long summer months.  But as I stood there, that last morning, it changed from the place where I live to the place I had lived.  Just like that.

I grabbed by last bag and turned to walk out.  I paused at the light switch.  Above it hung a cross stitch of a fawn with the dates of my birth swirling around her that my mother had stitched.  I had walked past this picture countless times but on this last day, it caught my eye as if for the first time.  In that moment, I lived the definition of bittersweet.  One foot eager to head to college, meet an unseen roommate, and embark on the next phase of my life.  But my other foot dragged behind, unsettled at leaving my well worn desk and sturdy bed.  But the hesitation was merely momentary and with a quick flick of the wrist, I hit the switch, picked up that last lingering foot, and walked away from my home for the first time.