I’ve always dreamed about my life beyond these four walls.
A life where the waves crash gently against the shoreline and the pureness of the surrounding air fills my empty lungs with a gentle feeling of living.
I used to say—and still do—that as soon as I walk across the stage, I will start my life alone. I’ll pack up, move away, and attend a school across the line from the mitten I grew up in; I will finally obtain a feeling of freedom that I’ve always longed for.
Though it has been my refuge, no part of me has imagined a life here where I currently stand, holding onto and writing more memories into the already-filled walls of my room.
But as I stare, fixated on the rather comforting feeling the sunlight creates as it shines against the plainness the four white walls of my room contain, I fear I will no longer be able to find this feeling of comfort in the walls that await me.
I fear these new walls will not contain the same cracks of paint for my imagination to draw stories around, and will my hand still trace the walls in the same way, getting caught on the imperfections where the paint did not dry smoothly? I fear the new ceilings I lay beneath will not hold that same soothing whisper telling me—amid chaos—that all will be okay, and what if these new ceilings do not have the welcoming arms for my mind to run to on the sleepless nights?
I fear that in this life I’ve imagined beyond these four walls that I am currently living in, I will not have what I need. I fear I will be alone.
Though it is contradicting to say, a part of me does not want to leave, to grow up, to walk through new halls—ones that I did not once fall running through, only to not reach the end but to get a bandage and sympathy ice cream.
A part of me wants to forever wake up to the feeling of my parents, in the kitchen, cooking breakfast which fills the house with the smell of their love and as I first leave my room for the day, they’re waiting with open arms which they will annoyingly wrap around me, knowing I am not a morning person. What if the ones who now stand in my future kitchen do not know to—even though I hate it—start my morning off with a forced hug and a smile?
Here I stand as I’ve reached the talking point; the point where my future has become the topic of conversation and all are wondering how I will spend my next 428 days. And when I’m asked about where I will be in the days to come, I give the drawn-up perfected dream of mine. But what they do not know is that I, more than anything, fear my dream. I fear reaching the point where my dream becomes a reality and it is all up to me to survive in a world beyond the four walls I have always lived in.
Because what happens when I step outside? What happens when I reach for the life beyond my walls and it’s not everything I’ve ever dreamed of? What happens when I fall and there’s no one there to catch me? Or when the comfort of my room fades into a feeling of unfamiliarity that I cannot live in? Do I keep dreaming? Or do I go back to what I know?
Though I’ve always dreamed of a life beyond these four walls, a life of living, I never imagined what would be holding me back from obtaining it is me and my fear.
I wish I could say it’s all going to end the way I want it to, but as time will only tell, I will stay lying under the soothing ceiling, surrounded by the plain white walls, wishing to stay, yet longing to leave.
