Everything. My bed. My food. My clothes. My Suki. My half-finished collections and new hobbies I start every six months. The pile of junk mail I swear I’ll shred tomorrow. All of it, behind this one door.
Then it hit me even harder. On my walk I passed dozens of front doors. Behind each one is someone else’s world. Maybe someone was celebrating a birthday. Maybe someone else was crying on the bathroom floor. One neighbor could be folding laundry, while another is staring at a lottery ticket hoping tonight’s the night they finally get to tell their boss to fuck off. One neighbor could be hiding a personal library that rivals the Library of Alexandria. While another might have a BDSM dungeon in their spare bedroom. The possibilities are endless and it all exists quietly behind closed doors.
I started thinking about all the places I’ve lived. The apartments and houses I grew up in. The way my old bedrooms were set up. My grandma’s old house. I can still picture the floor plans of each one and how the rooms connected. I remember the loose floorboard in the attic at my grandma’s where my dad told me he used to hide contraband as a teenager. These were entire chapters of my life and now I can’t go back inside. Someone else lives there now. It’s their world but the walls still hold my memories.
One time in 7th grade we got a new girl at my school. It was a big deal. I went to a small school and new students were rare. Her and I started talking which lead to us planning a date at the movies. When she gave me her address to pick her up, I froze. It was the same apartment I had just moved out of a few months earlier. Her new bedroom was my old bedroom. How weird is that?
A house you used to live in is like a saved video game you can’t play anymore. The game goes on and someone else has the controller. All you’ve got is the memory of how it felt to be in that world.
I don’t really know what I’m getting at with all this other than the fact that I think too much. But here’s what I landed on. Every front door you pass might be hiding a story, a secret, a circus, or someone's sanctuary. No matter where you live, no matter if its a studio apartment, newly build condo, or a McMansion, it’s your world.
And maybe that's what I need to remind myself. Your world doesn't have to be big to be meaningful. It just has to feel like yours when you walk through the door.