Summer Sights

02 | moves

I wake to the sun's rays peeling into my room, growing more and more apparent as each minute passes. Light creeping in through the slits of my blinds, causing an array of bright rectangles to display from my floor all the way up to my bed. 

I've been lying in my bed awake for quite some time now, trying to pretend like I wasn't here and this wasn't actually happening. But this tactic stopped working around the time I found out Santa Claus isn't real. 

Even in moments where I needed it the most. 

Today is moving day. Today is "get out of your tiny ass comfort zone and go somewhere new" day. 

One could say that today is not a day that I'm looking forward to. 

One could say that I'm kinda dying on the inside right now. 

Both would be accurate observations. 

I quite literally roll out of bed and grab my glasses from my bedside table. Even though it's summer, my small bedroom still manages to be freezing cold in the morning. I slowly but surely make my way out of my bedroom and to my bathroom just a couple feet down the hall. With one look in the mirror, I can already tell that this morning is not going to be a fun one. 

From my curls flying out from all different directions of my head to the freckles that appear to be frowning at me from my cheeks, I look like a wreck. 

Oh, and my brown eyes. My plain, lifeless, bland brown eyes. 

I hate my brown eyes.

They're not kind or soft like my father's. Or chocolatey like my maternal grandmother's.

They're big and the color of a mud puddle. 

I hate them.

I turn away from the mirror, revolted by the sight and reach into the shower to twist on the cold metal knob. The sound of the water, like rain pattering against concrete, is music in it of itself. An instrumental melody with no need for lyrics. I strip myself of my pajamas and step into the hot water. 

I let it cascade down my body, flow so easily like a rhyme. I imagine that I'm standing in the rain. Smiling. With his arms wrapped around me. And it's like we're surrounded by this whirl of happiness, that nothing could ever interfere with. Like we could take flight at any moment and it wouldn't matter where we would go, because we'd be together.

 But then it all goes dark. And I'm freezing. I hop out of the ice cold shower and grasp at the counter to keep myself stable. I would miss the image of what I was thinking just moments ago, but I'm reminded why it's not a reality in the first place.

 Hurt.

 Pain.

 Suffering.

I'm not sad anymore, not like I was before. Now, I'm just kind of empty. Like a displaced void that doesn't know what it feels like to be full anymore. 

And at this moment, this void is having trouble breathing. Breaths just keep coming in, but they're not giving me time to recover. They just keep hitching. And hitching. And hitching. I feel like I'm being strangled. I can almost sense the cold fingers curled around my neck. And my breaths just keep coming. And hitching. And hitching. Like breaks in the system. Breaks in my system. 

I feel my eyes beginning to well up with damning tears and that does it for me. I won't shed any more tears because of him. 

He isn't worth any more of my tears. 

I look up at my bathroom ceiling, trying to make the ocean in my eyes retreat back to where it came from. I take in a long breath through my nose and ease it out through my mouth. 

I start to do my hair as a distraction, knowing that it'll probably keep me occupied for a substantial amount of time. My hair wasn't always a mess of long coils and loose curls, it used to be fried straight and damaged beyond relief. But I guess I got tired of being ashamed of my hair in its natural piece of work but beautiful(ish) state. 

I have a lot more to be ashamed of than my hair anyways. 

I work some product into my damp locks and leave them to dry by themselves. 

My face is one of the main contributors to the disaster. The only thing I truly like about is the light freckles that speckle across my cheeks and nose. They're one of the things that connect me to my mother, which means a lot to me.

To finish up, I wash and moisturize my face, brush my teeth, and spray a light spritz of fragrance onto my wrists.

I walk out of the bathroom and back into my room to figure out what I'm going to wear. My alarm clock reads 8:50 and my flight doesn't depart until 10:50, so I still have a little time left. I just pull out the first items I see in my closet and they end up being ripped jeans and a graphic tee with the phases of the moon on it. I pair those with a black baggy cardigan and my favorite checkerboard Vans. 

To go along with the grungy vibe I'm sporting today, I play The Strokes while I finish packing. I already have two full suitcases, but it doesn't feel like enough for a 12 week, give or take a few, trip. 

♢♢♢

A whole album, suitcase, and carry on bag later, I find myself once again lying on my floor looking up at the ceiling. 

Maybe I'm trying to cope with the overwhelming feelings that I feel coursing through my veins. 

Maybe I'm just nostalgic. 

Maybe I'm crazy and my ceiling is just white. 

But right now I think maybe, I'm just tired. And nervous. And maybe just a little crazy. 

So I stay here for just a while longer, not knowing how soon I'll be able to do this again and find the same comfort. The comfort of being able to remove myself from whatever reality I'm living, that I can just not think. I know the room at my Aunt's house won't feel the same and the ceiling will probably be a different color. Maybe a vanilla or old lace white. But not this same off white that I've stared at so many times in these last few months. 

I manage to pull myself from the ground and prepare for another ceiling. In another house. In another town. With different people. As I slowly make it down the stairs to the kitchen, and from there to the car, and from there to the airport where I bid my tearful mother and sad-smiling father goodbye, this is what I think about. 

In my head, just going through the motions, paying no attention to what anybody's saying, I just think. Actually more fantasize. I fantasize about a different house from the one I've grown up in, in a different town, with different people, but with the same off white ceiling that I've grown accustomed to over these last few months. 

And this brings me extreme comfort, the thought of this same off white ceiling appearing in this new town, actually gives me comfort. Enough comfort to forget about the fact that I'm leaving behind my beloved off white ceiling in search of a new one just like it.

 Is it a betrayal? It just might be. But it's one that I'm willing to live with if it brings me this much delusional comfort. 

a/n: don't ask why i'm so obsessed with this ceiling thing but it's becoming a thing. 

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