My Safe Place | Teen Ink

My Safe Place

November 4, 2021
By havenpowell BRONZE, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
havenpowell BRONZE, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I’ve never felt at home in my house. I don’t feel peace or safety. But I do in my room. Here I am, sitting on my bed, looking over at everything. I see home here. A room that reminds me who I really am. 


My walls are light gray. I painted them myself. Just like I put the floors in. I had help from my step-dad of course. We make a good team. I remember sobbing in this room 4 years ago when I learned he would be marrying my mom. Salty tear-drops penetrated my mouth as I thought about having to move to Illinois with him. Oh, how the times have changed. 


I’ve changed too. The hours I spent transforming who I am can be found everywhere. The black hair dye that stained my white dresser. The scissors that stare at me from my shelf after I cut my hair. Even the eyeliner that left marks on my mirror. Parts of me are thrown all over this room.


Everything always seems to break. My room is like a tire with a slow leak. Every time I fix something, another thing breaks. My bed was passed down from my sister after she went to college. Because my best friend broke that bed from jumping on it, I am sleeping on a new one now. She and I also smashed my window. We spent countless days climbing out that window to suntan, sleep, and relax on the roof. I’m not quite sure how she is still allowed to come to my house. I can see my best friend smiling at me right now. She is in the majority of my pictures on my wall. The 4x6 pictures are scattered all about in no particular order. Some of the people in the pictures aren’t present anymore, but I keep them up anyway. It’s a reminder that even though things have changed, they used to love me, and I used to love them.


My white, stained nightstand is crowded with pieces of me. A chipped rose quartz tower, an empty Coca-Cola bottle, “My Heart and Other Black Holes” by Jasmine Warga, orange pill bottles, and daily vitamins. My step-dad made me the nightstand as a gift, which is probably why it groans in protest when I take anything from it. Nevertheless, I appreciate the gesture. It’s nice to know someone cares about me. The only drawer has a black, modern handle, and inside it holds my journal. Years and years' worth of bold emotions inside a tattered, old black and gold journal. The cream-colored pages and black, messy handwriting tell my life story better than I ever could.


The sticky-tack from my sister's glow-in-the-dark stars is all over my ceiling. I remember how furious she was that I didn’t keep them up when she left. This used to be her room, after all. She moved out to go to college in a new city, just like I will soon. 


I am going to miss the one safe place in my life.


I think saying goodbye to my room is going to be very hard. The gentle motion of the fan blowing cool air onto my skin. The scent of sandalwood trailing from the tip of the incense to where I sit with my magenta stuffed bear from my childhood. I feel safe when there is consistency, and my room is nothing if not consistent. My closet door is always broken, the hinges never quite on. My ugly tv stand, with hideous glass doors, that I say I am going to replace, but never do. Even the blue and gray paint on my floor, after my dog ran through my painting for my mom. I stayed up until 2 am on Christmas day to finish that for her. Long nights, just like that one, spent studying for school. I had to rifle through my closet to find notecards for my chemistry test. I tend to throw anything I don’t want to deal with in there, which is a habit I need to break.


I can hear my sister loudly giggling from across the hall, probably at a Tik-Tok she found. I used to get angry at how loud she was when I was trying to sleep, but I will never take that for granted again. I will probably never live with my sister again, and even the thought of growing apart makes my heart pound like a drum. I don’t want to leave my one, true friend who I know will never stop loving me.


My room is understanding. It doesn’t yell at me for not cleaning it, or make fun of me when I don’t want to get out of bed. My room is calm. It doesn’t make me feel anxious or uncomfortable. Most importantly, my room is different from any other place in the world. It is the one place I can be myself without fear of rejection or abandonment. When life is a flood, my room is a liferaft, saving me from drowning.


A room full of memories, portraying the real me. I’ve always wondered who I really am. I am perceived as a different person to every person I meet. The only one who knows the real me is my room.        I feel safe because my walls don’t judge.       I don’t need to hide who I really am for my laundry basket. It’s just as broken as me, with the busted bottom and cracked handles.


I hope that one day, another room will love me just as much as this one does. 


The author's comments:

I wrote this piece as a way to cope with moving to college for my English class. I'm a senior in high school and I am going to college in january.


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