Advanced Essay #1: Moving Up, and Away

Frank Ocean voice pierced through my thoughts.

“I thought that I was dreaming when you said you loved me,”

I laid my back on the hard floor surrounded by a wall of boxes. Each box held a part of my life, this room held a part of my life. As moving day got closer, packing got more difficult. The reality was setting in. Watching my life packed away into boxes.

“The start of nothing,”

The bag full of things I meant to throw away but never did was finally defined as trash. A year earlier I watched as my sister things disappear as she went away to college. Now I watch as my whole family and I disappear from this apartment I grew up in.

“I had no chance to prepare I couldn’t see you coming”

I would never be walked home to here again. I would never forget my keys to get into this apartment again. My room would be someone else’s room. The door that was too big for the frame would be someone else's problem. My door had always been broken. It didn’t close all the way and now a new family would come in and probably fix it. My door. They’d take it off the hinges. The song started to fade out. I grab my phone and  hit repeat. I will stay in this moment forever. This moment where my room is still my room. Where my door is still my door. Where my home is mine and no one else's.

“This is it” My mom said unlocking the door to a house I’d never seen before. We walked into a large room. I carried the tiny piano I grew up playing in my arms. I walked up the stairs to see what would become my home. What was meant to be my room was four walls and a hallway that led back to a bathroom. I walked in and the door closed. A door that actually closes. I put the piano down and I sat down on the carpet in front of a window where the sun shone down. I felt the warmth on the carpet. It was so quiet. No blaring sirens, just the occasional hum for a passing car. I put my hand onto the keys of the small piano and played a C chord. The sound rang out and echoed. The echo of an empty room. The echo of my room.

The flaws of this room i’d come to accept. My door would slam when I didn’t want it to, my old door never did that. Carpet, a broken closet door, the sound the ceiling makes when someone is upstairs.

Change was never my strong suit so when it can go moving the effects were immense. Stages of transition always get me, the whole idea of losing a part of what used to be my whole life always causes a shift. I’m tired of shutting down in the face of change. My high school transition took two years. Two years of messing up. Two years of lack of motivation. And everytime I finally adjust to a change it forces me to ask the question is it too late? Am I too late to fix this?