these four walls
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. i've left them again.
I’m 22 now, but every time I return home to my childhood bedroom it feels like I am 10, 15, 18 all over again.
One of the first times I felt this way was in my third year of university. When I flew back home for the holidays, I remember arriving at a place that I thought would bring comfort and reassurance, but somehow, it didn’t.
The place I called home for over a decade, a place so familiar to my touch, head, and heart – suddenly felt so foreign. But funnily enough, nothing had changed from the way I left it. Save for a few new plants my mom decided to tend to in my room, or the worn-out couch in the living room that was finally replaced – everything was the same. Yet, I felt so different.
Maybe it was me that changed.
I remember walking into my bedroom only to feel shackled to the bed frame. I felt small, stunted, stagnant. Why was this case?
Like I had tweeted at that time, I felt like my experience during that first semester I moved out was a petri dish for my personal growth.1For the first time, I had tasted agency! I had experienced what it was like to really live on my own, and got comfortable with my daily routine. I had grown into a person beyond my wildest dreams, but when I’m home, I feel like all that work gets undone and I rescind into my childhood self. I feel unmotivated. I feel lost. I suppose that is why I constantly want to leave, and why I’ve left these four walls again.
“Perhaps it is the fragments of a past self I’ve evolved from seeping through the walls of my childhood home, a girl I don’t recognize anymore. Perhaps I am being whiny, perhaps I just miss my agency.” - Me, 2021
✻
Four walls. I watched them change, as they watched me.
Most places I go won’t remember me. But these four walls do. No one has seen me grow and change more than them, despite promptly abandoning them for most of my undergrad. How can these four walls hold so much emotion, so much power over me? They taunt me constantly. Memories of a former self seep through these layers of re-painted concrete, where all I can do to try to contain it is add another layer.
From white, to pink, to its current state lacquered with a milk tea-esque beige. My walls changed as frequently as I felt I wanted to—when I decided they would be beige, I was deciding I was no longer the little girl who loved pink. More than that, it represented the shift from childhood to becoming a young adult.
If I took a hammer to chip away at the paint beneath these walls, I’m scared of what would come out.
Inside these walls, my mother’s lectures are trapped between the soundboards.
Inside these walls lie the ghosts of my former selves I can’t even recognize anymore.
Inside these walls contain a little girl’s hopes and dreams, a teenager’s failures and rejections, and all her in-between banal moments.
My bed has seen me cry more than anyone ever has. Curled up like an armadillo, I sometimes instinctually will end up releasing a wave of emotions just from assuming the same position I always would when I wanted to cry. The frog plush L got me for my 20th birthday sits on my bed all pretty, but it knows more than anyone what an emotional support crutch it is for me.
As I gaze at these four walls before each departure, I recognize they are more than just physical boundaries defining my room’s space. They encapsulate the intangible layers of memories and emotions that have shaped my upbringing and journey into adulthood.
✻
02/07/2024
days left until takeoff: five.
The days have been incredibly bittersweet.
I think back about my time in Vancouver. I think about what ode, what homage I want to pay to it. I scroll through the photos in my camera roll, and feel I don’t have much I feel strongly about nowadays, save for Atelier and a few close friends.
I will always be fond of this place for the growth it gave me. For developing my love of nature; the hiking and backcountry camping trips, and biking on islands I never could have fathomed. I’m nostalgic for my time spent as a camp counsellor and senior home volunteer; days spent holding car wash posters or selling Krispy Kreme donuts for fundraisers. For spikeball summers barefoot in the grass.
—
four.
I recently read a piece of advice that, paraphrased, expressed “the best place to be is where you currently are.” But I really couldn’t figure out how to make Vancouver the place I wanted to be, at least at this point in my career/life. These last 5 months getting heavily involved with my communities have been wonderful and more than I could’ve ever imagined to be possible, and as I said before the days have been incredibly bittersweet attempting to part with these people. Yet, I can’t seem to shake this feeling that I want to be elsewhere. That I’m meant to be elsewhere. It’s not a promise for bigger or greater or better. It’s rooted in deep intuition. When I think of the core of a city, I think about its people. How there are people here I will miss, for sure. But I think I’m more excited about the possibilities with people elsewhere.
—
three.
I’m having a hard time admitting it, but I’m terrified. You would think that after years of packing up my life in a suitcase I’d be used to it by now, but for some reason this frightens me much more than when I moved to Seoul (halfway across the world, as opposed to just halfway across the country). Maybe it’s because in a way, I was still comforted by the fact I would be on exchange and that I had a ‘structure’ set in stone for me. I had a determined path. This time, there is no path to follow. I’m doing this simply because I decided I would do this, and I have no clue how it will pan out. I’m so scared of starting over again.
—
two.
I always feel so weird during these times. No one talks about how much of a struggle it is to cope with the idea of leaving a place while simultaneously being excited for a new one. To cope with all these struggles while still having responsibilities to fulfill until I’m gone. To simultaneously love a place while wanting to leave it. I wonder if I’m making the right choice.2
Do I invest in my communities here or try to grow them elsewhere? What attaches me to a community? Is attachment the right word? How to have permanence? Does this make me look flaky? I’ve constantly been setting up shop in new areas, planting my roots, watching myself flourish in one way or another, only to uproot myself again.
I will never get back these four walls, not in the way I once had them.
I was watered here. And I am uprooting myself again. How will I be taken care of now?
How will I bloom?
—
one.
Last night, I dreamt of a world full of faces I had only come to know and recognize these last few months. It’s amusing to me how despite spending much of my life here in Vancouver, a majority of the people who have made this city meaningful for me reside in people I have not known for very long.
I arose to the pitter patter of raindrops on my rooftop, in and out of slumber, as I heard my mom in the kitchen prepping for Lunar New Year celebrations. The walls of my house are easily permeable by sound, and being a light sleeper I always found myself awaking at random intervals because of a floorboard creaking or the kitchen faucet turning on. My dad, getting ready for work at 6am, or my grandma cooking breakfast. Despite this slight inconvenience of waking up when I’m not quite ready yet, I always found it quite comforting. I knew that when I heard sounds in the kitchen, it was a sign of presence from people who loved me.
I hope the house isn’t too silent for them after I’m gone.
—
zero.
These four walls.
I want to paint them green now, but maybe they’re meant to stay just the way they are.
closing
if you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading what is probably one of the most vulnerable and personal pieces i’ve written. i’ve been writing this on and off over the last month or so (with seeds planted here and there a few years ago), and though i was planning to release it before i left, it also feels right to release now.
oh, also - I’ve moved to Toronto now! life is a bit of blur and many things are happenings and it feels pretty surreal I still haven’t processed. I’m still in denial tbh, it feels like I’m visiting temporarily still as I don’t even have my lease yet lol
i am so grateful for all the people in my life who love me and whom i love and who actively make plans with me and marks important things for me in their calendar for as i do for them and and - people are just so wonderful. this goes for all the people in vancouver, in toronto, and all over the world. here, there, and everywhere. rambled but i just feel so many feelings!
thank you as always, to C who gave feedback on my imagery for this one <3
I lived on residence in first year which I don’t really count as “living on my own.” Then when COVID-19 hit, I moved back home to Vancouver. So the first time I experienced living off-campus, frequently cooking for myself etc. was in 3rd year.
I also teased the possibility of just moving out of home but still staying in Vancouver, i.e. perhaps relocating downtown if I didn’t enjoy the comfort of my childhood bedroom. But even then, I still think I wouldn’t be put in an uncomfortable position enough given how close my family would still be to me, technically. I don’t know!
And I know I’m incredibly privileged to even have a choice to make. But what I do know is that I’m only ever making the best decisions I can make for myself based on my judgment presently. I tend to have this optimism that things will just work out because I will make them work out, even if it’s not in the ways I expected/wanted them to initially (and sometimes that is the beauty of it!). I don’t expect that belief to fail me now, despite all my nervous feelings.