Moving Day

She sat in an empty room. Not just empty of people, but empty of things, empty of feelings, empty of awareness of space and time. She hugged her knees in close to her chest and lowered her forehead onto them. She felt the skin of her knees to the skin of her forehead, which calmed her for as far back as she could remember. The lovely pale pink skirt of her dress fell around her. Her long dark blonde hair rested in waves on her back. If she could only feel as empty as this room maybe she could bare the rest of this day. But she felt far from empty. She sat full of anger and sadness, fear and disappointment. She would gladly give a lot of these emotions to feel empty. It took everything out of her to feel so many ways at once. Not only was she full of emotion she sat full of memories. Memories that were so lovely they hurt to think about. Memories of deep love, sincerity and a family that believed in her. There’s nothing quite like being believed in. She liked to believe that she once believed in herself too, before the world convinced her there was not much to believe in. She brought her head back up and let the sun warm her face as it streamed through the window. She wiped her tears away and slowly stood. The great thing about empty rooms are they make great rooms to dance. She slowly turned in circles, sad half hearted circles, but circles all the same. She took a mental picture of this upstairs room that once held her entire physical world, the one space that became as much of a reflection of her inner world as possible. She trailed her finger along the wall, out through the hallway and down the steps.
Outside moving trucks and her parents cars stuffed with boxes awaited. They would move outside the city, she would soon leave for college. She told them to head to the new house without her, she wanted to hang back before completely leaving behind a place that sheltered her for her first 18 years.
She could show you her backyard that served a stage for her imagination, a safe haven from a tough day of school, a place of nurture as her pups came to greet her. She could also show you where each dear pet was buried, where she broke her arm, the place she’d run to when she’d cry. She knew people said home is where the heart is. But she knew the house itself becomes part of you as you grow, intertwines with who you are, shapes the way you look at the world. It is a place you continue to run to in your mind when the world becomes too big. So she took in what she could on that sunny June morning. She breathed in home. She let it settle in her lungs, deep in her gut, captured it in her soul. The house was now empty, but inside her it wasn’t empty at all. No, she was full of life and all of the pain, memories and joy that come with it. She was filled with love for a house that would always be home.