in my room
on remembering, redecorating, & trying to forget
no, i don’t think it’s shameful to still be living with my parents. out of everything in the world that should bring brings me the feeling, this facet of my life isn’t one of them.
in an effort to not dox myself, my suburban family home is a cute hour-and-a-half away from my current workplace and at max an hour-forty-five away from the areas that i typically haunt. yes, sometimes an additional bus or train is needed to take me to where i need to go, but that’s new york for you, baby. i don’t let non-natives tell me that i’m less of a new yorker simply because i live where i do, because…well, no. shut up. i deeply value the separation of my busy, city social & work life with my quiet, private sanctuary back at the house.
i hate the concept of new year’s resolutions, but my promise to myself for 2025 was to make life more comfortable for myself. it sounds funny, but i don’t think i realized that it was supposed to be this whole time. this has taken many forms over the past two weeks, from practicing meditation in the mornings to wearing my knee brace to prevent further strain while i paint. this morning, i installed new dimmable, color changing bulbs to help with my migraines. i’ve even cut out glasses of wine in my diet while sad for a cup of hot chocolate instead. the most significant part of this all, however, is renovating my bedroom to the best of my ability.
my room has been mine since 2006. we previously occupied a house much further north, but this is the place where most of my formative memories have occurred. these four walls have seen so many versions of me, from toddler to taxpayer. some of these sof’s i can barely remember. soon, i’m about to rule over two more rooms on this upper floor, practically making it my dominion. i’m no stranger to renovation, having seen through my adolescence in the era of Youtube/Pinterest DIY-culture, but something about it feels different now. my room has become my office, my studio, my artistic laboratory, my hosting space. whatever i need it to be, it’s become. with a designated in-house studio space in progress two doors down, i will be able to separate my entanglements for the first time.
i’d like to say that i’m singlehandedly running the garbage bag industry right now. i’ve gone through two boxes of them while purging the contents of my life. my strategy? sort through your “net worth” (mine’s like a $2 bill and a half eaten skittle) while deeply unsentimental. (you don’t need your junior prom shoes. you don’t even wear heels anymore, idiot.) discard of anything that doesn’t serve you in the present: clothes i’ve worn since middle school that are hanging on by a thread, the uncharacteristically frilly designer gown i dared to purchase for an awkward college formal which saw more of the chinese food takeout i had later that night than the dance floor (she’s going to the big RealReal in the sky), and an abundance of empty art supplies that i’ve held onto for ages in the name of sustainability.
this mindset heavily applies to mementos i’ve kept from my teen years. it feels like that era of my life has been suffocating me since i left it, and i want to give myself space to acknowledge the growth i’ve achieved. my inner child is healed, now it’s time for my angsty adolescent self to get her revenge.
i’ve gradually been removing an academic run’s worth of memorabilia over the past four years, and it’s been difficult; as much as i loved existing in that space, the memories have been tainted by the reminder of people who did not love me as much. you could argue that i’m stuck in the past. what the hell, why not. that’s not it though. picture that scene in a clockwork orange where alex is being visually tortured, eyes wide open. that’s how it feels when you are trying to unpack your thought patterns, knowingly adapted from a certain time period in therapy each week. i’m not stuck in the past, i’m stuck.
my teenage days were spent melodramatically listening to unreleased ballads by harry styles, lorde’s melodrama, dodie, billie eilish, and an abundance of queen.1 “love of my life” went platinum in my house. i prided myself on my knowledge of classical literature and golden age musical theatre, even if at times my fun facts on the subjects became a bit repetitive. this was also the era i started to realize i was struggling with my brain. i vividly remember watching daniel and depression upon release and having something click.
my thinking got more irrational by the day. however, i didn’t realize exactly what was causing it (ding ding ding, mental illness enters the ring), so i thought i was going crazy. i began to suspect that my friends weren’t really my friends, and that they were only tolerating my presence. as time passed, i shockingly realized that i was right.
my cleaning took me not only to my living space but to my phone. i deleted my dormant contacts, and soon made my way to photos - yay saved storage space! in the process, i came upon a screenshot from july 2018. that year is genuinely a blur to me, and i don’t actively have knowledge from that time readily available. it was an innocuous 8:35am instagram DM screenshot; probably another porn bot that said something hilarious. upon closer look, it was an anonymous message from someone who claimed to know me. they spouted an ungodly amount of crap, including the fact that my friends were plotting against me and that i should stay alert and try to hold on, because “it wouldn’t last much longer.”
my famously paranoid ass was suddenly blasted to the past. i remembered the feeling of waking up to a message like that while my brain was still fundamentally developing. amidst the privately known discovery of my anxiety and insecurity, someone took it upon themselves to take advantage of it and prey upon the greatest weakness of a kid. the funny part is, i can 100% tell you who the anonymous DM was now. several others agree with me. about an hour after alerting The Group Chat about the paragraph, i got another anonymous message apologizing, saying they “took out their own rough patch on me.” incredible timing, girl.
i began not only to get angry with my almost-15-year-old self for letting this happen to me (my therapist cut me off when i was about to finish this sentence last week, but i still stand by it. i should’ve fought back. hindsight is 20/20 i guess), but for current day me for unearthing it at a very inopportune time. this was one of several things that i was able to connect the dots with in hindsight regarding these “friends”, but i’ll spare you the details.
about nine months later, i received a lengthy, non-anonymous DM, with a writing style suspiciously similar to the one i had the absolute pleasure of reading previously. i was essentially told that my anxieties were ridiculous, that this person felt targeted by them, and that from that moment on, i’d be cut off. too mentally unwell to handle. this was the first time i ever felt like i needed to hide myself away.
to be fair to them (because i’m a civil, self-aware adult), i had trouble navigating these new feelings. i didn’t know what to discuss and what not to say. so sure, i openly and loudly discussed my insecurities, which i am slightly ashamed of. the thing is, i thought i had a safe place for my feelings as a teen, but in the end, it turns out i didn’t. i know now that i deserved one, though.
now, i am grown up. 22 years old and fully making sense of something that happened close to a decade ago (holy shit…). i don’t think this group of girls think about me now. they’ve probably left me in the past, which, rightfully so. thank god. but it’s rather strange that they get to go on with their lives, while i’m left to live with the aftershock of what they did.
as i continue to clean, the most mundane shit brings back the worst of flashbacks - the funniest one being a pristine, barely touched boxed set of percy jackson and the olympians given to me by two former friends (dubiously non-identical twins) for my quinceañera. they were major nerds about it, and expected me to get through the series - i only read the first one. a replica of my first starry night-patterned ukulele - the original collectively purchased for me by that friend group for my sweet sixteen. it was later accidentally destroyed to bits by my brother’s friends. that must’ve been a sign. my handmade junior prom corsage, shoddily push-pinned to my large gallery wall - the other person never wore theirs.
so, younger sof, please forgive me if i don’t want to continue to be reminded of a time where you felt like a heavy burden. you never deserved it. i’m still making peace with the past, but from here on out, it’s “all pleasure now.”2 no reminders of sadness, of people who didn’t accept me while i was trying to accept myself. i’m so lucky to be surrounded by so much love nowadays and to be able to recognize it most of the time, so it’d be silly of me to not shift my focus to that instead. i am my most authentic self and i wouldn’t have it any other way.
i have a trio of new, pointy black gothic mirrors hanging above my bed. there’s a whole door of polaroids, chronicling some of the sweetest mundane moments from the last five years. i wear clothes that fit me and make me feel good. i write essays and poems at my desk, surrounded by proof of my achievements, canvases of my art, pictures of cats, dogs, and a view of the forest of trees beyond my window. now, an artisan camp flag confronts all who enter my beloved bedroom: “who the fuck are they, and who cares what they think?” i’m trying to take that sentiment with me as i go along my merry way.
a fun anecdote: my best friend and i had a joke that we’d bring cardboard cutouts of roger taylor (her) and john deacon (me) to prom. that never happened. however, it probably would’ve been a better experience if we did so.
this is a phil lester quote from a kickthepj twitch stream. i forgot which one.