For My Bedroom

I fell out with my best friend when I was ten. It was earth-shattering at the time, but the details are fuzzy now. I’m sure that mean words were exchanged in dimly lit classrooms and whispers were passed from ear to ear over the lunch table. I could hazard a guess that teachers tried to intervene. They probably told us that we were better than whatever petty transgression had caused all of this and that by talking, we could figure it out. But we didn’t talk and we didn’t figure it out. From then on, we were no longer friends at all.

I do remember coming home from school that day. I remember slamming my bedroom door the second that I was on the other side of it and lying back on my bed. I remember hot tears sliding sideways off my cheeks and how the ceiling looked blurry as I stared up at it. I remember the feeling of my feet resting on the wall, stabilising myself in between heavy breaths. And I remember the weight of my mum sitting on my mattress, listening to me trying to convince her that I was the worst person in the world. I remember being at my desk the next morning and examining my puffy face in the mirror. I remember sitting on the floor to reluctantly fasten the velcro on my school shoes. The world didn’t end in my bedroom that day, but it felt like it was going to.

These four walls have had a front-row seat to my one-woman performance of growing up. What I didn’t realise when I was younger is that the bed where I once cried over my best friend would go on to be the place I would be sitting when I opened my university acceptance letter almost ten years later. The walls would eventually be plastered with the faces of people I would learn to love in a way that transcends the playground and I’d look in the mirror again on the day of my Sixth Form prom and feel prettier than I ever had. I’d stare at the same ceiling, sometimes lost in thought but mostly mid-laugh with my sister late at night, thinking about how lucky it is to be alive at the same time as each other. The floor would become home to a bed for the dog that I would adopt when I turn nineteen and the door would remain open so he could come and go as he pleases. The desk would substitute for a classroom during a global pandemic and the room a lay witness to my anxious pacing before connecting to a Zoom call.

I do not know a version of myself that hasn’t existed in this bedroom. I do not know how my clothes would look in another closet or how my notebooks would balance when stacked on another desk. I do not know how to make a bed that isn’t this one or how to stand on a floor that doesn’t creak in the far right corner. I don’t know where I’d keep my bag when it isn’t on my back or my shoes when they aren’t on my feet. There would be no home for my glasses when I take them off to rub my eyes amid writer’s block-induced frustration. I am unsure where I’d leave my coat to dry after being caught in the rain or my bookmarks when they aren’t nestled between pages. I do not know who I’d be without these walls.

One day, someone else will grow up in here. I hope they find the same solace in this room that I have. I hope they crave coming home. I hope they laugh and cry and question under this roof. I hope they cover the walls with scraps of their soul and I hope they dance until they get shouted at by their parents in the kitchen below. This room will host funerals when their heart gets broken and parties when it gets pieced back together. It will watch them fail and comfort them until they feel brave enough to try again. It will cheer for their successes in the form of afternoon sunlight filtering through the window and bird songs waking them up. It will hold discarded clothes while they get ready to go out and offer companionable silence for reflection when they get home. It will tolerate slammed doors and the aches and pains of getting older. It will be a best friend that they can’t fall out with.