I once wrote of a happy place deep within my mind, a library I dreamed would one day be in the realm of reality rather than just in the depths of my head. I would visit this sanctuary when I needed an escape, but I haven’t visited in quite some time. I haven’t needed to visit, I found a safe place here in reality: room 139.
A room I have spent four years and countless hours in. Sitting on the brown couch with Sofia and Eva, our names and the names of editors before us above our heads, laughing at anything and nothing. Watching my writing and others grow. This has been my home base and comfort in the stressful whirl of high school.
This room has held so many memories, ones that, when I recall them, will fill me with warmth: crying after a difficult Spanish test, stealing countless Pop-Tarts from Mr. Georges’s bottom right drawer, Trendsgiving, white elephant, The Hunger Games simulator, meetings that always start with incessant ringing of the bell, and so much more.
Room 139 is one of tradition, but also of growth. Looking back at my freshman year writing to my writing now, the change is drastic; as though they are not written by the same person, in a way, they aren’t. I am not the same person I was freshman year, in large part due to room 139.
My growth has led me to being a senior writing my very last article that will ever be posted on The Central Trend, leading to the final day of sitting on the brown couch.
I never thought I would sit on the brown couch. I started in a swivel chair on the 140 side of the room, then I sat on a leg rest or the floor in 139, then I got my very own seat, blue and white checkered, then a green chair that left me sliding around, and finally a seat I never imagined I would take— the couch.
The couch is now a part of my comfort in room 139; it has seen me cry and held me as I napped. It has watched me become more comfortable in my leadership role. Room 139 has seen me reach all the potential it saw in me on my first day four years ago, the potential I never envisioned.
But the room has offered me all it can, and now it is time to find comfort away from my safe place. I don’t think I will go back to visit the library in my mind, room 139 will take its place in the back of my head, comforting me until I find my way in a new world.
Room 139 has given its all to me, and I know it is time to let the room move on. I know I have to let the room help another lost writer who started out with far too much confidence and was quickly crushed before she could grow back into the confident writer she always had the ability to be before she could share her confidence and help the room help others.
My biggest comfort will be knowing that while I will no longer sit on the couch with my name above my head laughing at a meme on Eva’s phone, someone will find the same comfort I have found in room 139, and the room will always be there. The inside may look different, but 139 will hang proudly outside the door always.
Now room 139 is my safe place, tucked away in the back of my mind as I walk out of the doors for the last time and step into my new life.
Farewell, Room 139, I shall always think of you fondly.
