In My Room

Deb: As Brian Wilson sang:

There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to ... in my room, in my room.

In this world I lock out all my worries and my fears ... in my room, in my room.

Do my dreaming and my scheming, lie awake and pray,

Do my crying and my sighing, laugh at yesterday.

Now it’s dark and I’m alone but I won’t be afraid,

In my room, in my room, in my room in my room, in my room, in my room, in my room.

Growing up, my room was my sanctuary. I am sure many of us feel the same. From my very first ballerina wallpaper to my ponytail-girls-talking-on phones wallpaper to the Beatles and Monkees posters, it was always MY SPACE, not myspace.

Because this “my space” was reserved for my inner sanctum, the keepers of my girl world. Carol Ann, Donna, Bev, Jane, Pat, Pat, Gail, Dale and Suzanne.

My parents were so wonderful about letting me make my room my own. During Monkees years, I even had a poster of Peter Tork on the ceiling above my bed. Sigh.

It was with this spirit that we allowed the boy to do the same. And he has gone for it over the years, sporting rooms that spoke to him and surrounding himself with things he loved.

There was the Pooh room, the Thomas the Tank Engine room, the Space Cowboy room, the Flags of the world room, and the purple movie posters room.

In the last few days he transformed his room yet again, his father and he ripping it apart, recycling, giving away, trashing and cleaning. This time he was inspired by photos he had seen and he downloaded a hundred or so, painstakingly cutting them out and arranging them like an art installation around the room.

It looks so fantastic and I love it.

And then came a sobering moment. After oohing and ahhhing about his room, he said to me, “Mom, what will you turn this room into when I move away?” Wow.

“Ahh, yeah, honey, I ummm, don’t know. Maybe a crafts room or ahhhh, ummm, guest room or.........I don’t really know.”

So I shall cling to this latest in a long line of sanctuaries of self-expression the boy has lived in.

Because in the blink of an eye, it will become a boring old guest room. 

Barbara: Wow, it’s crazy that you should write this on this of all weeks. I mean, you could have written this any time over the last blog-year, given that your boy has been unofficially gone from the nest for the last few years (still coming home between stints at school).

But no, you’ve written this and I read it now on the very week that my daughter received her acceptance to university out of town. She already has a place to live. An apartment with two other girls. She’s all set. She’ll be moving out in the fall—not permanently yet (I don’t think, sniffle, sniffle), but she is close to that too.

I will feel my first loss in the fall and I am feeling weepy now thinking of it (thanks, Deb!). Don’t get me wrong, I am nothing but thrilled and excited for my daughter. But I anticipate that her room—in all its eclectic and vagabond glory, with its posters of Dylan and Marley, its Egyptian artifacts, its life-size octopus hand-painted on one wall, its piles of homework and books, its mountains (a veritable RANGE) of clothing on the floor––will soon become a boring old something. And she will be gone. And it will be quiet. And a chapter will be over.

Wow.

Deb, it is serendipitous in the extreme that you should write this now. Because not only do you remind me of this hard, cold reality, but you have also shown me by your amazing example just how much loving energy and loveliness can come to that empty nest, changing it from “empty” to “full of grace”. Thank you.