Episode 43: STORY: Exploring Your Childhood Room & The Person You Were
This is a Happiness Spells Story Episode: Wandering around your childhood bedroom learning about you and the things you love -- the person you were and the person you've become. Childhood books, awards, puzzles, daydreams and more.
I’m in your childhood room, maybe we’re home visiting your family for a holiday. I wonder about you a lot as a little kid, what you thought about, the clothes you wore, the books you read. It’s nice to be in here, to see a side of you that I don’t know so well.
The walls are painted with your favorite color, it’s the color I always think of when I think of you. I pick up a snow globe which your aunt got you from her trip to Europe, I shake it, watching the snow go everywhere inside the tiny contained world.
I pick up your yearbook and slowly flip through the pages, looking for you or signs of you, I read the funny notes that your friends have written and I find your class photo, you’re smiling so much you’re almost laughing, you do that now, too, sometimes.
I look at your stereo system and the CD’s and tapes that you have sitting there, all your old favorite bands and singers, I pick up the guitar that was stuck in the corner of the room and run my fingers gently over the strings, imagining you playing with your friends after school or in a band in the garage.
On your desk is a little coffee cup with pencils and pens in it, papers stacked neatly nearby, I don’t look at them much but it looks like homework, invitations to parties, flyers for school bake sales.
There’s a jigsaw puzzle halfway completed on the desk and I lazily hunt for a corner piece and put it in place, once I find it. The image is of a boat in the middle of a lake near some trees, I wonder if you ever thought about going there, when you were putting it together.
You have a few photos of friends hanging above your desk, I could name some of them, you’re laughing a lot in these pictures, I can tell they were good friends.
I look at my own reflection in the mirror, smoothing my hair and realize that you must have looked in this very mirror ten thousand times over the years growing up, did you like what you saw?
The posters on the wall haven’t changed much since you put them up, pictures of people who you looked up to, quotes you like, a couple of actors and actresses that I recognized as well.
Looking at the bookshelf tells me a whole history of you, I see so many books that you’ve told me about before, books and stories that were important to you.
On one shelf of the bookcase, some feathers, a few small stones and one enormous sea shell, I lift the seashell to my ear, close my eyes and listen to the ocean roar for a few moments.
On top of your bookcase are all kinds of small gold trophies, sports maybe, academic, I feel quietly proud of you.
Your closet is open halfway and I see your clothes hanging in there, colors and patterns, textures from a very different time.
There’s a small TV set in your room and a little-handwritten TV schedule with a few shows underlined, I imagine you huddled with friends on a Friday night, laughing and eating snacks in the flickering light of your favorite shows.
On your bed is a crocheted green blanket that your grandmother made you, I remember you telling me how you didn’t like it at first but then how it reminded you of her every time you saw it and how much it meant to you.
I look around the room one last time, at all the history of you and feel grateful that I know you now, there’s all of these hints here about the person that you would become, person that I’m so glad to know, I smooth the cover of the bed gently and then I walked out, closing the door softly behind me.
Happiness Spells Podcast is a five minute list of all the greatest pleasures and smallest joys in life. Increase your capacity for positivity, curiosity and gratitude. New episodes every Monday and Thursday.
This episode of Happiness Spells was written, arranged, recorded and produced by Amanda Meyncke in Los Angeles, California. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie.