The Stuff We Leave Behind

One thing I both love and hate about being home is looking around my room. I feel like my room really tells me who I am. Having lived here my whole life, there's not much I can hide about who I am. Since I never throw anything out, I have so many pieces of my past here, even if they're pieces I may have forgotten.

I have my thousands of baseball cards, most of my artwork, my playbills from all of the RRS productions, autographed concert passes, my soccer and softball trophies, and a picture of me on the 8th grade bike trip, amongst others. It's nice, in a way, to be surrounded by me, but there's also something very scary and vulnerable about it-- when we leave home, we can create whomever we want to be and reinvent ourselves. We can live as that person for a long time. But eventually and inevitably, that person we've been since youth pops up somewhere. Going back here, I'm reminded of her. I'm still that person, and I'm not ashamed of that, but in a way, being here is proof of my life. It says, "This is me," loudly and clearly.