When I was younger, my walls were bright yellow. On each side ran a white-picket fence, complete with trees, squirrels, and birds on them. There were butterflies in some corners, hidden on top of rocks, or flying in the pretend yellow sky. I loved that room more than anything. Once I started middle school though, I decided that the characters and charm were just too 'kid-like' for my now grown-up-self to handle.

After my father died, the year I was starting high school, I decided that I needed a deeper, richer color. This time, we painted it more of a red-pink. Well, that dark pink room made every picture I took and every person inside of it look a strange shade of orange, and even though I was leaving for college in a year, I insisted on painting it again. With more change than I could imagine going on in my life, I felt like my room needed to somehow match that.

My mom argued relentlessly, telling me that there was no reason I should paint a room that I'd be leaving in a year. So, I saved my money from my part-time job and painted it with my boyfriend instead. I can still see her laughing when she came home to see me on his shoulders because we couldn't find the step ladder. There was, and still is, so much paint on the ceiling you would have thought we were painting it too.

Now, I'm back for the summer and home from my second year of college. I have new friends, new jobs, a new life. But here I am again, sitting in that all too familiar room. So much has changed, so many colors have filled these walls. Each color has seen me cry, seen me laugh, watched me grow. I am a totally new, almost-grown person now.

I am starting to become the person that the little girl dreamed of when she stared at her yellow sky and bright red birds. If I look to my left and think really hard, I can almost see where the tree grew on the wall by my window, and I can almost take myself back to how it felt to be so young. I find some comfort knowing that the paint is still there, somewhere, under layers of experiences, changes, and growth.