It feels like the end of a chapter I don’t want to be done writing.

And I’m trying so hard to grasp the pages as they’re ripped from my clenched hands, but they’ll tear if I don’t let go of what will become the past. 

Today will eventually become yesterday, until it becomes nothing more than a memory I reminisce upon with old high school friends well after college. 

I’ll tell my children stories of the girl with glasses that adorned her body in vintage sweaters and the blonde girl with the best laugh. I’ll tell stories of how they always seemed to give the best hugs and could always give the advice I needed to hear. I’ll recall tales of their tom-foolery and how they brought me infinite joy in the room I call home. 

I’ll show pictures from our Secret Santa zooms and videos of the day the blonde girl had to find a vacuum to pick up her mess.

And I’ll get choked up as I explain our goodbyes in the very room I found myself in.

I’ll display pictures in my house of the girl with ever-changing hair and the girl who never let anything sit in pending for longer then two seconds. People will ask about them and I’ll tell them stories of our adventures to get slushies and frantic text messages about late stories. I’ll pull out all the pictures I impulsively sent to group chats I probably shouldn’t have and screenshots of the weird conversations we had after long days and even longer nights. 

I’ll read their old, forgotten about stories to my children before bed to share with them words of wisdom before they rest their tired eyes. That way, they’ll never truly be forgotten about.

And I’ll tell and retell stories of one of my favorite people in the world who truly embodies warmth and sunshine and all things that are good in this world. She could always tell when my world was crumbling, she’d wrap me in her arms and let me rest upon her shoulder while her sunshine warmed my tear-covered face.

I’ll recall the girl with bangs draped across her forehead that told me about how my aura reminded her of the gems on a jewelry display next to rings at the store. I’d tell my kids how we would eat lunch in an alcove together and piece together bulletin boards and how she always had the funniest one-liners.

I’ll keep the memory alive of the girl who thinks she can drive but probably shouldn’t have gotten her license; I’ll still be confused how that happened. She hits the top of her car as she races through intersections and doesn’t let the weight of other’s opinions rest on her shoulders; instead, she honks her horn in front of houses we drive past and drives over curbs in parking lots, forever residing in my mind as a care-free teenage girl.

I can’t help but cry for the time I will have to say goodbye to all of that.

For there will come a time where I won’t have room 139/140 to cheer me up or an old, brown couch to catch my tired body when I need someone to support me, and that thought absolutely terrifies me.

I watched the seniors leave this week; six familiar presences have been torn from my grasp, and I can’t help but cry for the fact that that will be me in a year. I will walk out that door, my pockets full with as many memories as I can hold and my brain filled to the brim with the knowledge that every person in the room has bestowed upon me.

I’ll have to say goodbye to the broken Keurig on the counter and goodbye to the mismatched chairs that I adore. There will come a time when squirrel statues and Hunger Games simulations will be forgotten about. 

I cry not only for the fact that they had to leave, but also for the fact that I will have to do it too. 

This room means more to me than a room should, yet this room has become my home, and every person in it has touched my life in more ways than I could ever acknowledge.