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I shoved the key into the door and pulled it sharply towards me, as I had done so many times before. As I opened the door, the entire house answered me in a loud , sudden echo. The sound felt empty, and as I opened the entryway door, I saw that the house was indeed empty.
I stood in the entryway for a few minutes. I thought about all the moments that occurred in this entryway. There was the time I kissed the boy I dated when I was a junior. There was the night my high school boyfriend – a significant and life altering part of my existence – said goodbye to me the night before he left for his mission. There was all of those nights I came home late and cringed as I pulled the door towards me in order to unlock it, a loud bang and creak following. There was the day Austin picked me up for our first date, how I raced out the door.
The emotions I feel overpower my mind, and I feel the weight of 7 years push against my heart. Here I feel anger, for the times I stumbled out that front door, lost and frustrated. At the same time, I feel happiness, for the times I smiled and giggled, 17-years-old and in love. A kiss should always be a happy memory. And the surge of freedom and excitement I felt when I flew out that door, so many times, anticipating something wonderful. Like the time I found a vase full of roses on the welcome mat outside that front door. I poured the hundreds of pennies onto the kitchen counter and sorted through them, my mother at one end of the pile, me at the other. I remember how my hand flew up to my mouth in shock, how a smile, a young, innocent, adolescent smile flittered across my lips. I remember how I sprinted towards the front door, down the driveway and 5 houses down to tell my best friend the boy of my dreams had asked me to homecoming. Some might shake their heads and think, “how silly.” I think “sweet 15-year-old Shannon,” and gaze off into the distance. Prom night, my first day of college, a sleepover at my high school best friend Jane’s house; I flew out of that house with so many different destinations holding so many important moments. Then there are the sad moments; the ones where I cried, on my knees, underneath the frame of that same door. I cried the night my first real boyfriend recited hurtful words, each syllable snapping at me, as if to say, you sad little girl, you sorry little feign. But then, as if for retribution’s sake, there is Daddy, storming through that same doorway, storming down the driveway, storming to the truck said boyfriend sits and storming said boyfriend’s egotistical rant on his only daughter. And there I was stumbling after him, telling him not to, and here I am, reminiscing about his outrage, shouting my encouragement, thanking him for his unconditional love.
I shake my head. And with it are shaken those memories, jumbled up. Later, they will settle into the depths of my subconscious, probably not to ever be recalled.
I step through the entryway into the great room that connects to the kitchen. The wood floors reflect the afternoon sun shining in from the windows that line the west wall of the room. A glare skews my view of the backyard, but beyond it I see the baseball field, silent and empty against the wooden fence that lines this house. My steps make defined echoes that seem to jolt the house back to consciousness. It seems to blink at me, blank and confused at first, as if awakening from a deep sleep; one accompanied by complex dreams filled with the unfamiliar and intertwined with the most intimate. Seconds pass, and the house warms, as if a sudden smile has broken across it’s face, recognizing the familiar background smells and sounds, of it’s surroundings.
I walk down the bare hallway to my bedroom. I stand outside the doorway for a little why. It’s as if the house has raised it’s finger to its lips. “Hush,” it whispers. I can feel that the walls lining the room hold much, so much that I hesitate the step through the doorway onto the carpet, where even more lies, silent and sleeping. I only hesitate for a few minutes, before my mind overrides the silent warning my ears echo.
And it rushes over me. All the sacred moments I spent in that room. My minutes of hesitation could not have prepared me for this. I saw myself on the floor in front of the glowing bay window, silent tears streaming down my cheeks. I remember my heart full of hurt as I said a hushed goodbye to grandpa. I saw myself dancing around my bed, singing with every inch of my heart. My room had been my escape. There, I could let go. I could play out all the frustration or confusion. I would spin, jump and, in the end, sink to the floor and just lay there. I saw myself lying next to who was to be my future eternal companion happy and content, and then, several years later, next to him again, sad and restless. I saw myself bent over this same bright screen, pouring out emotions I had no way expressing besides a keyboard and a program labeled WORD. I saw myself lying in the darkness, awakening with a start, reacting in panic, the lights and the TV being flicked on as quickly as my fingers could find the switch, and my hurt and angry eyes slowly closing around 4 in the morning each night.
I saw the nightmares, but I saw the fairytales that entered my subconscious every once and awhile as well. I saw him, the one that changed it all, frequenting my dreams, both my daydreams and my subconscious ones.
I saw him take over my thoughts. I saw angry, hurtful words fly from my mouth and shatter against my mom and dad’s hearts. I saw their tears, and I saw mine. I saw the anger as if I was viewing things through some sort of infrared screen; anger glowing bright red and orange, or could that be love lining the area where our hearts would have been.
I see myself packing up boxes, pulling apart furniture, and slowly clearing the room entirely. Sadness mixed with hope flashes across my face as I say goodbye to a most intimate place, a most significant and sacred location, holding more knowledge of myself and my experiences than I myself hold.
I see myself return and leave one more time, not returning entirely, as though I am staying at a hotel, passing time in between two areas of life.
I thought I had said goodbye before, when I left that last time. But right now was my real goodbye. Before, I’d had the ability to return to the room, stand motionless, eyes closed, pondering life’s lessons learned here. Now, the room would soon belong to another soul; it would soon gain new knowledge, except this time the knowledge would be of someone else’s life, someone else’s journey. I would never again stand in this room. I would never let my eyes flit around, stopping momentarily on each wall, stray nail left behind, each mark my presence had made.
So goodbye 2268 South Penman Lane. I know your walls will go on to hold our memories, words we didn’t mean, thoughts we wished we could’ve shared, emotions that hung homeless in the air. Your walls will forever hold my story, and the story before mine. And now it will hold the story told after ours. Promise not to tell my secrets, reveal my flaws, or retell my mistakes. If you must speak, tell only of my accomplishments, my break throughs, and my victories. That said, I understand that those unspoken flaws, secrets and mistakes, have made up my successes and my journey as a whole. In my head, my story is illustrated throughout every inch of paint that lays flat upon the wood you are made up of. This fact empowers me to write more of my story. It will exist on other walls, ones I don’t even know about yet. And at the end, they will form a sort of mural, forever present in this world and forever intertwined with the rest of the world. If we lined up all of the world’s murals, a perfect puzzle would be created, connecting us all in some form or another. That is a beautiful thing....
