Freshman move-in day came sooner than expected. I was nervous about a lot of things, from making new friends to navigating the many buildings on campus. I took the bottom bunk, scattered pictures across the walls, and ever faithful to my Pinterest board, strung up Christmas lights on the ceiling. St. Scholastica Hall, Room 420, was going to be my address for the next 10 months. With every pushpin I stuck into the wall, I slowly began to make that 11 foot by 16 foot room a home.
But I realize now that it wasn’t the Target bedding or painted canvases that made my room livable. It was the memories that were made there, like the first time I had a heart-to-heart with my roomie, or the multiple (and lengthy) guitar and voice jam sessions my BFF and I conducted on the weekends. It was the times I came back from a bad test crying, or those nights where I shamelessly watched five hours of Netflix. Any room can be a home. It’s what you make of it.
I decorated my desk with countless pictures from home. As the year went by, I slowly began to combine my old memories with new ones. My name tag from the first days as a freshman. I should have kept tallies for how many times I introduced myself that first week. That “artsy” sticky note with the Ben Rector lyrics that got me through my first round of finals. The encouraging note from my roommate when I’d had a bad day. I had dutifully pinned these memories to the cork board because I didn’t want to forget. I still don’t want to forget. I was fighting against my own consciousness, willing it to keep every experience fresh in my mind. Changing that collage even the tiniest bit meant I was going to lose something.
I took down those pictures today. I stare at an empty cork board when I do my homework now. The walls are empty and bleak without the Christmas lights, and the floor is bare where the rug used to lay. It made me want to cry. It wasn’t that the room looked empty. It was that I was packing away my memories, packing away my freshman year, something I could never relive again. I’m a hoarder, and I don’t think I’m alone when I say I love to keep every little memento.
This time, I let myself throw some of those notes away. I realized that I didn’t have to keep every little slip of paper or concert ticket. It’s not that I’m forgetting how those memories affected me, because every little note irreversibly changed me. Getting rid of those notes was simply making room for new memories.
We try to relive moments through what we don’t let go, but don’t just stick to the past and keep the same collage every year. Make room for new memories and new adventures.
