Scintilla Prompt #4 Talk About Your Childhood Bedroom.

Alright, wow I would have to talk about my bedroom when I was 11 years old; the same room I picked when my parents moved one house down the street. Yeah, you heard me right. My parents bought the house next door.

I remember running up the stairs and flinging the door open. The royal blue carpet that greeted me made me feel like I finally had arrived. The brilliant white walls called to my Tiger Beat and Seventeen centerfolds. A milk glass globe clung to the ceiling. The Brady Bunch had nothing on my room. But what made this room the best was…it was mine; I didn’t have to share it with my brother! Finally I got to have a room where only girl stuff was on the ground. No football gear or smelly brothers allowed! 

With only one window, it was the perfect room for a young girl who loved New Wave and Pop music. It was my canvas to plaster huge posters of Culture Club and Kajagoogoo. It was the creative collage of EVERY picture from my Teen Beat and Bop magazines. Centerfolds angled the walls of every popular 80’s band pose. By the time my masterpiece was complete years later, every inch of white walls and ceiling were covered. It was perfect for a teenage girl smack dab in the middle of the 80’s with parachute pants and multicolored Chuck Taylors. God I loved my room!

My room hugged me through the years of not feeling like I belonged, broken crushes, and eventually the end of my parent’s marriage. The walls absorbed my secrets and listened to my stories without interruption. My room was my comfort when I didn’t understand the world and my sanctuary where I first learned how to meditate. It’s where I would sing at the top of my lungs and dance until I was out of breath. It was perfect and it was mine!

Eventually we moved, I remember it took days to take down every poster and picture. I remember methodically cutting the tape from the corners and carefully filing every magazine picture and centerfolds in manila folders so they wouldn’t stick together. I collected them and stored them in a box labeled Gretchen’s Memories.

Funny, 20 years later I still have that box. I have no doubt I could climb up into my attic and find it. Stored away from my grown-up world, and still patiently waiting for me to come back and whisper to them how everything worked out.

Thanks for hanging out and sharing in my memories. I’ll write you tomorrow~