Because environment matters too.
During my sophomore year of high school, my Chinese teacher had pulled me aside for a conversation. He asked me what was going on since I constantly had a long face. Additional to my teenage emotional turmoils and dramas, I was on the brink of fully shutting down. I dreaded going home because it was the place where I felt the deepest loneliness and sorrow. In truth it was a place of trauma for me that would result in many years of gruesome nightmares. That day though, I’m glad my teacher was there to lend a listening ear, however no matter how much I try to remember our discussion, I honestly don’t recall anything other than his last question, “So what do want to do now?”
I simply told him, “I want to go home and clean my room.”
I remember him giving me a strange expression but I didn’t take any offense to it. He didn’t know the extent of my home life or that my room was a tornado from floor to ceiling. My only safe haven yet it was an unhealthy mess.
Getting on the city bus, my ride home was a lot calmer thanks to my teacher. Even the rest of the trek home I wasn’t as anxious. Then I stepped foot through my front door and the noise was loud and far away at the same time. I didn’t blame my little siblings greeting me at the door but I barely acknowledged them either. Usually without saying a word, I just headed downstairs to where a sour and musty smell greeted me. I had to walk through the family room to get to my bedroom which was more a small office space. Around me dirty furniture, broken toys, and garbage that I paid no mind to. Upon reaching my bedroom door which at the time had no door handle but a gaping hole, I pulled it open and stepped onto wrinkly papers, old notebooks and art supplies scattered across the carpet floor.
Just from that less than a minute walk from my front door to my bedroom, I already felt my motivation leak away. My twin size mattress had mounds of clothes and all of my belongings were crammed against the side of the wall opposite from my bed. The room was so claustrophobic that I only had a small unclear pathway between everything. For some reason though, my small closet wasn’t filled at all except for a few hanging garments which I’m pretty sure weren’t even mine. Thinking back now, perhaps I didn’t care to put anything in there as we often swapped rooms.
Anyways, it was cold and gloomy down there just like my mood. I picked up my clothes from my bare mattress and dumped them on top of baskets already occupied by more clothes. I just remember sitting there then, looking at the gray smudges along the white walls from dirty hands and feet and eyeing the cream colored curtains which were yellowing around the edges from years of being there. I hated moving the curtains aside because I didn’t like seeing the sun – the brightness of outside. During that time I much preferred the rain and gray clouds.
I laid in bed in a sort of defeat until night arrived and I finally got the push to get up and start organizing my room, starting with picking up all my random shit lying on the ground to folding my clothes only to put them back in the baskets which I pushed into the closet. It took a few hours moving things around to allow me whatever space I could get from the tightness of the room. I don’t recall anyone calling for me or bothering me and that was nice as I just wanted to get my bedroom semi-decent. Once I was done I again felt a lot better but I don’t believe I dared stepped outside my room unless I had to use the bathroom. I even mused that perhaps I could paint the room.
Not long after, my room reverted back to a disorderly mess. Still my safe haven in a way but a reflection of what I couldn’t yet change or escape. It was just a tiny room within a house.
My Journal Vault 