Pacific Index

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Opinion

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I wish I was wearing a grass skirt and lei while bending backwards under a bar to bongo music, but no I'm stuck in this in-between stage of a young adult's lifestyle.

There's a breaking point somewhere in life when you cannot be a child and you must be an adult. This is an easy transition for some who seek independence, but others are forced to contort their bodies as they step up to the limbo bar, knowing it's only going to be harder the next time around.

My spring break, which seems like forever ago, was spent sprinting down what was left of memory lane: I cleaned out my room at my parents' house. The empty nesters that my parents are decided to downsize. Typical.

My mom warned me that she had painted over my sunflower-yellow bedroom with a bland mint color and she hid the corsages I collected through the years in my window seats. It's all juvenile, I know, but it's cherishable.

It's hard to remember everything about your life; that's why we keep all that stuff. It's not just stuff; its our childhood, our adolescence, our wonder years.

In the midst of tantrums and frustrated rants, I was forced to throw out a lot of stuff: size zero pants I thought I could fit into again, posters made by my field hockey team for my final game as captain, an entire box of folded notes from seventh grade, figure skates, and my first research paper on beavers that I wrote in second grade.

I had two plastic tubs to keep anything I wanted. The rest would come with me to Oregon or go to the dump. I donated my stuffed animals to my father's church and their daycare center, my field hockey sticks to my elementary school where I had first been taught, and more than 10 bags of clothing to Salvation Army. I couldn't just throw away my memories.

I left my room looking like a beach cottage rental; a black and white picture of a man walking down the beach at sunset was on the bedside table, a wicker stool was at the end of the four post bed to conveniently put a suitcase, the closet was empty; there were no signs of a child, a young woman, or even an ant.

I haven't completely unpacked my suitcases when I arrived back in Oregon, maybe that's why it feels like forever ago. I am uncomfortable with the fact that what I thought was only my rental apartment, could now be considered my home.

College students go through this limbo of breaking our backs to be grounded to something; something we may not even know we've accepted just yet.

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