Surveying the mass carnage that is the floor of my room, actually I cannot tell if it is the floor because said carnage is too deep to see where clutter ends and the ground begins, I sigh in agreement with my mother. Yes, it is time to pretend to be less piggish. Today I will do battle with summer old dust bunnies and demolish weeks worth of unidentified teenage yuck in one fell swoop. For Narnia! Today, I will clean my room. If the pile of papers by my feet weren't in danger of swallowing up my toes, I might have laughed at the irony of how much my room in this moment resembled that of mine when I was six. Once again, full circle. Where to start? In assessing the enemy, I see three targets of primary concern. In corner one, is pretty much all the socks I have worn in the past two weeks. Disgusting. I can practically see the stink waves wafting off; they are colored green. In corner two, is way too many magazines. In between corners one and two is a bowl of questionably old foodstuffs and pieces of paper from a collage I never finished. On top of the piano the light from the window falls slanted through the blinds; I see the offending incomplete art project and quickly shove away my embarrassment under the bed.
Being able to walk across the room and not have to do gymnastics to get to the ladder of my bed sounds like a nice goal today. Trash seems lightest and least likely to be slimy so I begin gathering all the papers into one place and start here. I then methodically sort through the pieces I want to hoard, and the pieces I want to burn but cannot because massive bonfires, though great for marshmallow roasting, have little place in suburban life. Instead I settle for the square filing folder deemed the 'trash bin' aka during my brief but passionate romance with being emo as 'the box of discarded dreams.' At least this is no circle; it will stop here. I shiver at the memory of being a pre-teen, and then shiver some more because I realize that was barely five years ago, maybe five minutes ago. Probably five seconds ago. But also five thousand years ago. Circles have no time. The time bomb between corners one and two has been mostly taken care of now. What stays has been stashed away in the cracks and crevices of my hiding places while what goes is duly tossed away. Picking up the pile of socks I balance on one sock-less foot and open the door with the other. I then deposit my modest sized pile of stink in the dirty hamper with a strangely satisfying thunk. Now for corner two. After holding my breath for the socks the magazines are so much easier to deal with. Already brown carpeting is fighting its way through the sea of junk back to the surface. But there is still much work to be done. Stray art supplies and books swim through my vision and leave me feeling overwhelmed. Deep breathe, this too shall pass. I do not remember where I heard that last part. It was probably some movie; usually my strange and slightly intrusive reference thoughts come from movies so old the creators may very well have forgotten their names. By old I mean pre-o'eight. Time flows differently when you have not adulted yet. When the carpet is decent I move to the desk. When the desk is manageable I move to the dust. Dust is everywhere, it coats the chairs, tables, piano, lamp, the list goes on; I sneeze contemplating this. My eyes catch the mid-day-almost-afternoon sun as it's light tentatively passes over the piano and touches the mirror. In it's wake a fleet of airborne particles are gloriously illuminated. Time to break out the big guns. I get the glass and furniture cleaner. Towards maybe one thirty I have cleared most surfaces of my room. The bed is stripped of sheets, the floor of clutter. The dirt clumps that have been my guests for the past few weeks have now moved on to bigger and better things, a happy condo and beach side housing in the hotel-de-vacuum. With each scrub of the rag on the squeaky clean mirror I am trying to wash away the clues that I live here. In each stroke I want to wipe off part of me. Unfortunately the looking glass becomes clearer as the interference disappears and I am now standing eye to eye with myself and there is nothing in between me and me. My brown eyes lock with their exact twins and here I stay staring at a face so familiar yet so different now than the one I have known many yesterdays ago. Where, when, am I? Behind my eyes I know that between this glass and my brain is the answer. If I can just look hard enough I can find her, find me. Who am I? I do not know. The circles of my reflected pupils glow teasingly back at me. A low rumbling sound shocks me out of thought and I jump back a few feet. My hand instinctively goes to my stomach. One thing I do know is I am hungry. My legs walk me to the fridge while I inwardly have only the seventh existential crisis of the day, its all good, and I find myself in the kitchen. Microwaves are great for people like me who are too lazy to do necessary to life things like cooking. Too much effort involved there, would not want anyone to get the wrong idea here that I am trying too hard. How terrible! After lunch I see my favorite sweatshirt crumpled on the living room couch. Oh the circles I have drawn in the guise of black cloth. Under this sweatshirt I had hidden throughout high school when eyes could burn my skin. I would stash pens and pencils under the sleeves to the amusement of my peers. During my sweatshirt's prime, it was my armor of choice to face the world in and the reassuring touch I needed to feel when I was too afraid to ask for it. So many circles. But also, changes. When my body started to go through the awkward transition between childhood and adulthood and my brain could not handle 'the change' (an awkward synonym for puberty, because even though I am seventeen puberty is pretty much a swear word due to the level of uncomfortable it arouses) instead of hiding under a rock I hid under folds of fading fabric. Now I am here, standing with a full belly and an empty stare. Old magnetism draws me closer to the sweatshirt and I resist the urge to dawn it and escape from the increasing feelings of guilt that my stomach is distended now because I have ate. Not today. I swallow down that anxiety and steadily release it through my breathe. Its time to continue picking up the pieces of my scattered life now. Grabbing the sweatshirt I select a hangar to put the clothing on and place both in the closet. When I slide the door shut, the mirror cuts in between my view of the secrets hidden inside and the reflection of the me outside; a slice between past and present draws me out of my reflection. I know you. You are me, hello me. I see myself as I am now, scruffy, a little too eager, and satisfied to be bare armed despite the fact that I have just eaten. With my eyes closed I feel my heart beating in my chest and know that I am alive; feel the air as it fills my lungs and know that I am here, I am me. For now this is enough. I am a collection of when's and who's I have been before, but this does not mean all circles are set in stone. 'This is one circle I want to keep broken,' I grin to myself. As the corners of the line of my mouth turn up, I hear one more circle shatter as it falls to the ground. Until next time, -Soliuna
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Nerds in the NeighborhoodSoliuna
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