dwarfed inside its smallness

It's funny how small a room can feel. And in turn, how you can feel dwarfed inside its smallness. You empty drawers, uncover walls, and strip sheets to suddenly find yourself left with this skeleton of a room. A room you once decorated and organized to feel like yours, like home... it's funny how in seemingly no time at all a room can no longer feel like a room but an empty shell- a vacuum void of color and memory and life. And a month from now it will belong to someone else- perhaps even someone you know and love, but it will no longer be yours. It will be theirs. And kind of like the spaces and people who leave imprints on us, this room will leave an imprint on them- the imprints you've left and all others before you... so that someone else can make their own memories here. And maybe that's comforting to an extent, but somewhat sad in a way, that nothing feels like it truly lasts. Like we keep moving and fumbling through this reality, making and calling things our own until we eventually have to let them go and take on new things.

People keep telling me that change is a part of life. That we have to face it head on and move forward with our lives. I just keep wondering how that's going to happen. It took four years for me to feel like I had a home at school. That home- that little apartment and that perfect corner bedroom became my home. And I can open the door from my bedroom and walk mere feet to find comfort and hilarity and beauty in the people occupying the rooms near mine- the people who have not only become my best friends, but my family, my life lines. How can we move forward when we're leaving something... someone so precious behind?

It takes time to make something feel like it belongs to you. We're so complex and complicated that negotiating how a relationship or a space will fit us and work within our lives takes calculated time and effort. You start with this empty space and then you fill it. And there in it becomes home, a sanctuary- a place of solace and comfort. And then you leave it, you tear out the insides and leave the empty space for the next future occupants- may this be your living space... or even your heart.

And so I just don't understand how we're supposed to just move on. How we're just supposed to keep going forward with our lives like everything is fine when it's seemingly falling apart in our hands. How do we negotiate that? How are we supposed to 'grow up' when it feels like we're losing the things that help us define who we are?