Several weeks ago I sat down to work on one of these posts from my bedroom floor for the last time... and didn't know it. Several weeks ago, I couldn't hear echos coming back to me from the same walls that had been stuffed with the last 11 years of my wild little life. Several weeks ago I HAD to be sitting on my floor to get any writing done because my desk was overflowing with homework assignments, poetry drafts, half-full nail polish bottles and the Ibuprofen tablets that kept me standing through the toughest semester yet in terms of my mental health.
Things are a little bit different now.
My room is empty. There aren't clothes in the closet anymore, or artwork on every wall, or twinkle lights across the top of the curtains. There aren't yesterday's shoes in the corner and there's no smeared mascara on the pillowcases. There aren't loud guinea pig squeals coming from it anymore. It's clean, and quiet, and you can hardly tell that it hosted more than its fair share of life between the day I turned 13 and this past Thursday. If those walls could talk, they'd be speechless. We'll leave it at that.
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At the end of one of the first times I ever got to hang out with my boyfriend, he gave me one of his hoodies and told me I could borrow it. He'll make fun of me forever for it, but I tried to give it back to him when I saw him again after he spent the summer halfway across the globe. "It's your hoodie now," he told me. "I'll get it back when we live together someday." And I mean.... he called it.
Day by day and box by box, I packed up everything I own and now it's all in the middle of his living room. The rest of our afternoons this week will probably be spent moving everything again, over to the apartment that has both of our signatures on the lease. When I told my boss I'd need to switch my work schedule for the third time in two weeks because the lease agreement got messed up and about a million things went the opposite of how they were supposed to, she said, "Welcome to being an adult-- if things can go wrong, they definitely will."
And she was very, very right - but there's something about it that makes it worth it. There's something about living out of boxes at the moment that keeps things interesting. There's something about making homemade pizza with the love of my life that makes the packing, the stress, the payments, and the adulting worth everything.
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Mama made my favorite Cuban comfort food for dinner on my last night at the house, and even packed some up for me to take home when I came back the next morning to get the rest of my clothes. Which is nice, because as much as I love change and as excited as I get when I'm able to experience new things, the taste of Papa Perez's famous black beans and rice brings me right back to the familiarity of the things I've known and loved forever.
Thank you to my Oma, too, for sending me her waffle recipe the minute I asked for it and giving me the waffle iron I'll use to make them as soon as I get the chance.
I so wish you both could be here right now, helping me get the kitchen put together and making cooking channel videos like we did when we last saw each other.
I love you. Thank you for being as supportive as you've been. Thank you for the phone calls and the texts and reminding me that I'm capable of anything. Thank you for standing beside me when I was 6 years old thinking the balance beam at the playground you took me to would be the biggest challenge I'd ever face. Thank you for supporting me at 21, when I'm trying my hardest to balance everything and get discouraged when I lose my footing.
"Jump, don't fall!" Papa always told me, when I'd feel myself getting ready to lose my balance and start to panic.
That was his way of telling me to jump off the beam completely before I'd slip and get hurt, but it's also been echoing in my head in the recent weeks as I've been taking on every possible new opportunity.
"Jump, don't fall," I tell myself.
Because if I jump, I can always get back on again. If I give up, give in and fall to the ground.. who knows.
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When we moved into the house as a family in 2008, Izzy was our brand new and overly-excitable little ball of energy. She greeted me at the door with jumps and tail wagging every single day. A decade and a year later, as I told her goodbye until I come to visit, she didn't even have the energy to get up. She's gotten older, too. She may not have heard what I was saying, but something in the way she looked at me told me she knew what was going on... and I think that was tough for both of us. I was running a little bit late to work already, but I sat at the bottom of the stairs to take this picture and soak in this particular moment anyway. I can work extra hours or make up the money if need be, but these are the kinds of things that matter to me.
The tiny, tiny things. The moments that seem so small and insignificant to so many other people that they can't seem to understand why I bother taking the photos at all. I take the photos because that's the easiest way for me to take notes of the things that happen to and/or around me. My life is constant and chaotic- I rarely have the time to take real notes the way I'd like to. You'd never get pencils out of my hands that way. Snapping a photograph is the best way for me to hold onto an idea or an experience until I can give it the attention and appreciation it deserves.
Like this. The moment I realized my having a car key and a house key had suddenly turned into work keys, a house key, two apartment keys, the key to my best friend's house, a handcuff key and two others that I should remember but don't. So if the, "when one door closes, another one opens" thing is true... approximately 8 new doors should be opening for me, right??
TOTALLY kidding. But also, totally up for any and all new challenges and changes that are coming.
Here's to the empty old room that houses more memories than I can think of, and all the things these walls would say if anyone could ever get them talking.
"Won't your family miss you?" everyone's been asking me.
I sort of half nod my head at that and tell them yes, but I also note that we barely see each other as it is. Even when we shared a living space, we hardly ever got to catch up.
That said, I definitely will miss the littlest things with them, like hearing about their days and having a brother just a few steps away who I could tease whenever I wanted to. I'll miss Phase 10 games going down while Cincinnati chili is on the stove and dad is asleep on the couch. And I'll definitely miss the random trips to get ice cream for no reason, even when it takes four people an hour or more to decide on flavors to share.
When I left for a week long vacation to Providenciales in 2014, my mom hugged me and told me she'd miss me as I gathered my things and headed to my gate.
"I'll miss you too, but it'll take a while," I told her, mostly to lighten the mood a little bit but also in the name of brutal honesty. It wasn't that it'd really take me much time to miss her, but I was more than excited and ready to be sunbathing on a private island far away from my own day-to-day little world.
As we loaded my car with my last few boxes before I left the house completely, that same exchange took place.
To my family, I'll miss you, but it will take a while.
It will take a while because I'm more than excited and ready for everything that life is throwing at me.
Thank you.
Thank you for getting me to a place where I'm confident going out into this world, and thank you for being the reason I'm so ready to go and do good things.
Thank you for the stories, the support, and for giving me your extra wooden spoons.
I might be living out of boxes right now, but we'll have to catch up over dinner soon.
xox
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