a room no longer mine.

From my tween years to my teen years, my room blossomed. Summer after sixth grade, my dad and I prettified the walls with a light green tint, in honor of my mint chocolate chip ice cream addiction. I added bright nail polish stains to the previously clean, cream carpet: Midnight Blue, Pink Lady, and Seashore Darling. The metallic beads dangling from my dresser, headboard, and window sills looked so hip. I taped crinkly red streamers above my TV for my fifteenth birthday, and they stayed there. Pictures of plastered dance team smiles, giddy girls with arms draped shoulder to shoulder, and Sonic French fry fights overlapped on my five photo boards. I sticky-tacked magazine cut-outs on the wall—my favorite: “Ah, to be blonde.” I devoted my closet doors to Seventeen’s hunky heartthrobs, such as the pretty O-Town boys and the ruggedly gorgeous Paul Walker. I mixed the old pieces-of-Mom with new pieces-of-me. Her charcoal sketch of a horse and porcelain dolls clashed with my *NSYNC poster and complete Beanie Baby cat collection. My room rocked spunky, teenage flair—I would never change it.

Or, so I thought.

I moved back home for the summer break after my first year of college. I tried to pretend that the room didn’t feel weird. This was still my room—this was home. But most of my things were in boxes, piled against the closet door. I unpacked my clothes, but no decorations. What was the point? Over the two summer months, I realized that I wasn’t actually staying in my room. It belonged to High School Sara, or at least it did—I took half of her stuff to the dorm. The other half, still up, was an expression of a girl I didn’t relate to anymore—she seemed so young, out-of-touch. I wasn’t the girl who had proudly personalized that bedroom.

Not anymore.

One morning, I rolled up her boy band poster and bagged her Beanie Babies, but left Mom’s dolls—they weren’t mine to move. Pitched her pink-vested sing-and-dance hamster into a bag with metallic bead necklaces to give to the young neighbor girls. I boxed her Tigers paraphernalia and tacked a small Horned Frogs flag above the mirror. I turned slowly in the center of the room, like a music-box figurine. And there was the Super Secret Friendship Box, sitting on Mom’s antique dresser.

I sat on the floor, ruffling through the mementos, collected since 1990. These were still mine. Best friends forever. Nine photo booth strips, dating back to the days before make-up. The zany facial expressions, the signature smirks, made me smile. I lifted three pairs of “Best Friend” key-chains from the bottom of the box—crowned frogs, a halved heart, and fuzzy bunnies. We’d matched everything growing up, key-chains to Disney Princess t-shirts. I flipped through photos of us “modeling” in Mom’s old-lady flannel nightgowns; lounging on the floor, flipping through a copy of Seventeen together; at the vanity mirror, curling ringlets for prom. I looked through the pictures again, three times. Liz would’ve loved going through this with me, but she was on a backpacking trip with her family. I’d be at school again before she returned.

I carefully replaced the lid and tucked the box behind tangled black and gold homecoming mums in the closet. A remote peeked out from under the bed and I reached for it. The room had no TV; I had taken it to my dorm.

[Edited 6.20.09]