My Crappy Dorm Room

 I'm moving out of my crappy dorm room tomorrow, and then I'll be back in my home town for a few months. I'm going to wake up in the morning, file paperwork with Human Resources, take a final exam, ferry boxes and bags into a car which will drive to the storage locker place, ferry the boxes and bags into the storage locker, drive the car back to my crappy dorm room, ferry more boxes and bags into the car, drive the car back home to my parents' house, and then I'm going to fall asleep, surrounded by unpacked things which I can only imagine will be resentful of their cardboard trappings and will probably haunt me in my nightmares. I'm really looking forward to it.

 The truth is that I've come to love my crappy dorm room. One time, me and my roommate saw a fawn walking by a meter from our window. My walls were covered in postcards from people important to me. We filled the room up with lamps so we never had to turn on the ugly florescent overhead light. Yes, we did briefly have an ant infestation-- but hey, it could have been wasps like last year. And yes, I did rip four layers of paint off the bathroom wall trying to get a safety hook down, but that's nothing that I can't argue was there when we moved in. I did homework at this desk for nine months! I ate grocery store cake on this floor! Hell, we bought our own broom and dustpan for this room. College students choosing to spend money on a broom, will wonders never cease?

 And man, we were meticulous when we moved in. We chose the room closest to the laundry room and kitchen, with a little crate to transport our dishes and Trader Joe's meals. My roommate found a shelf for the bathroom, I took some drawers that were rotting on our friends' porch. We used my dad's rubber mallet to adjust the heights of our beds, so we could put Ikea storage units underneath them for scarves and craft supplies and way too many books. Now my side of the room is the same as it looked in September, sans my backpack and pillow. The wall has zero postcards. Boxes and bags are piled up in front of my empty closet. It's sad. I'm sad.

 Tomorrow I'm going to condense this room into what fits in the trunk of a car. Then, I'm going to see my parents for the first time in weeks. After that, I'm going to go to the library and make copies my resume and wander around the mall giving it to places. I'm going to see my friends and go to plays and dances with them. I'm going to go to the beach. I'm going to go to my childhood bedroom and sleep there for a while, and probably miss this place, yes, even if it wasn't all that great. A bedroom has a special way of cradling you.