Cleaning my room — the hangers tangled, the letters bound by elastic bands — and putting everything back into its drawer is a weird, passive kind of catharsis. It’s blowing dust off a record sleeve just to watch it settle an inch away.
There are these glimpses of the lady I was last year, the girl I probably still am more than I’m not. The sticker stuck to the shoulder of a teeshirt and left there because the only thing that should rightfully remove it is the universe. The stub from a movie I saw after eating beets and bone marrow with a boy who lived too far away. A year of living and worrying and trying to solve some things. Trying to move some foundation bricks into place and be patient enough to do it right.
Cleaning up a room itself is a puzzle. Where to put the bags still to be done, where to put the empty ones. How best to force an Ikea dresser to stay together when all it wants to do is collapse.
And the Insomnia cookies in a Ziploc bag in a cardboard box.
The sleeping bag compressed into a lime green brick.
Carefully re-taping the photobooth strips into their graph formation on the back of my door.
All of it a weird, quiet tide.
All of it a nautical “Woosh” with my eyes closed.
How many people do you think move to any place in any given year thinking that they’re going to make some changes? How many people do you think change their location — pack a car, buy a ticket — and think they’ve moved?
I’m learning you don't need to start all over in a brand new place. I’m learning what roots feel like and friendships that last longer than six months and love that doesn’t hurt so much and mostly I just feel happier.
If you pulled me like a weed there’d be dirt stuck to the roots.
It wouldn’t be a clean break.
But still, that rapid banjo in the back of my mind.
Keep moving, keep going, keep growing.
As fast and as long as possible.
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