This is it. Finals are finished and it's time to move out. I am packing up all of my belongings. The amount of stuff you can accumulate in an academic year is crazy. After three car loads and a lot of almost dropped boxes, everything was packed. I looked around my empty room, and I was speechless. My desk, where I spent so many nights studying for a test the next day and rethinking my future but all my efforts paid off, was empty. My walls, where I had hung my posters and pictures, were bare. My room was empty. I moved my life out of this little room.
I did one last walk through to make sure I didn't forget anything (although I would like to mention I ended up leaving my two bathmats...I blame finals for frying my brain). I looked around my bed first. I can not count the nights where my roommates and I would lay in our beds and discuss all our problems. We nicknamed ourselves The Three Ps: Petty, Pitiful, and Pretty. We each embodied all three of these characteristics. We just decided to embrace it.
Then I checked my desk. I could actually see the desk instead of the mountains of notes that usually called it home. There were no more highlighters or pens scattered across it. The long nights were over and that empty desk means that it's time to rest. It also means things are going to get harder. I have a lot of hard nights ahead of me, but after surviving these last two semesters, I know I can make it.
Then I moved to my closet and the vanity. I remember the mornings where I'd roll out of bed and throw myself together to get to class. Then there were the nights, like before semi-formal, where I'd spend hours on my hair and makeup. I remember all the fun I had when my friends and I would get dressed up and go out, whether it was for my friend's 21st birthday or for family dinner.
Then I walked into my living room area. I remembered the nights where I'd walk out of my room and the suite would be full of people studying and watching Netflix. I remembered when I convinced my suite-mate that "Friends" was amazing and she binge watched the entire series. I walked over to the shelf where we all kept our plants. I thought about all the times I would add a plant to the collection or remove one because my roommate had a knack for killing them (the only one to make it through the whole year was her bamboo plant). I looked over at the dry-erase board on the wall that at one time held "The Family Portrait." It was a giant drawing where my friends and my friends' friends drew themselves and I realized how many people I had grown to care about this past year.
I grabbed my roommates and a few birthday balloons we needed to get rid of and headed downstairs. After we completely failed at releasing the balloons and my beautiful basil plant lost a leaf, I left. I left with everything this last year has given me, both material things and beautiful memories.
