My parents always assume I have a boyfriend whenever I sleep on my own for more than a week. The thing is, I don’t. But I don’t mind if they have that thought because I want that — him. Their assumption is not something irrational, it makes perfect sense. There was this time where I slept in my own bedroom for weeks because I had a boyfriend. He was the kind of boyfriend that I talked with until 11. We had the kind of conversations that could last until 1 or 2, but we had school the upcoming days and we were mostly half asleep at 10. Teens.
I’ve been sleeping on my own for more than two months now. It is easy for them to accuse me for that specific reason. They are nosey enough to smell if I have something going on. But again, it’s nothing─or at least not a boyfriend, unfortunately. The real reason why I moved out from my parents bedroom is because we have different active time. The clock is not syncing between the three of us. My dad’s an early riser. My mom and I are night owls. However, she likes to relax (read: plays Candy Crush) whilst I am often fired up at night. All the ideas and writings are popping up at night. They keep me awake like a vampire as my dad snores and my mom still holds her iPad with closed eyes. One night. Two nights. Some nights I stay up later than my mom and sleep earlier than my dad’s alarm. After a month of feeling tired─waking up to my dad being loud on coming in and out of the bedroom─also feeling guilty─maybe at nights I was the loud one blaring music on my headsets, I decided to move my chargers to my own bedroom.
Yah iya, ketiduran semalem.
Aku nonton sampe pagi hehe.
Telponan sama (insert friend’s name here).
Those were the not-so made up reasons that I told my parents. Slowly, they understand and accept the fact that I do have a life in my own room─apart from them.
Here, it feels weird since it’s not my childhood bedroom. I used to have a lot of moments and memories there. My current bedroom is packed with emptiness. It is longing to be painted. All the books on my bookshelves are staring at me like I was the new kid on the block. They must feel abandoned. Dumped. Before me, this room was my grandma’s. She moved out three years ago. Then, my cousins moved in and resided in my childhood bedroom. It was perfect timing for me to have a brand new room and decorate it like the ones from tumblr.
The first year this room was supposed-to-be mine, my parents opened its door like the mouth of a tattletale. Any family guests or their friends who needed a room can use mine to crash for a day or two. They didn’t ask me first. Well, they did but, my nos were unnegotiable. Parents. My bedroom was more like anyone’s bedroom. I didn’t like it. It’s like sharing my room with anybody else. They left a mess I’m too overwhelmed to sweep. You know, I didn’t really care if they just slept here. Of course they don’t. They rearrange my chargers, spill their perfume on my current read, set aside the books for more space. It’s not a pleasant experience─constantly feeling blistered the morning after they’re gone. Where’s my book? I put it there yesterday. Well, guess what? No one knows except the one who stayed here last night.
According to my super clean parents, my bedroom is not that clean and tidy. Yes, the mess is mine, not anybody else’s. Kamar perempuan tuh ya harusnya ina inu ina inu. I let them sing like a broken record, it’s definitely a broken way of thinking. I don’t hear kamar laki-laki tuh ya harusnya ina inu ina inu often. Sadly I’m the only kid, the only daughter. I can’t call them out for giving a free pass to my hypothetical brother.
All in all, the room is mine. So are the twisted cables, the not color-coded books arrangement, the closet broken door, and the emptied skin care bottles. Still, due to its recentness, I don’t have any emotional memories in this room. Yet. This room didn’t hear my friend’s secret first crushes admitted in sleepovers. Nor my squeaks the first time he said aku instead of gua. This bed didn’t carry the weight of three best friends: two sleeping vertically, one horizontally. These tiled floors were not the arena we used for engklek when it rained outside. It is still just a functional room.
I was cleaning up my notebooks and I grouped them into filled and unfilled. The filled ones are stacked on the deeper part of my cabinets. The blanks are put up front. I tried all of the pens to see which still works. I refilled some of them with the refill I bought way before. Eleven functioning pens. The others are just bodies with empty inks. From beberes, I know exactly where I put my things. How much pen do I own and how much actually works? To have control and full knowledge of this room makes me sane in a way. The mom memes that say she always knows where the missing things went, are not applicable in this situation. She didn’t touch one dust in my room. There is no way she knows anything about my organized matters. I own this room and it’s under my control. Yes, controlling could be something dangerous but it’s just a room. My bedroom does not have any feelings.
But I do have feelings about this room. I may not be in this room for a decade or long enough to be attached, but in less than a year, I grow up the most. The notebooks empty pages started to accomodate my thoughts, my feelings, my dreams. One notebook’s filled. Another one the next month. Two notebooks in a month. I wasn’t aware of the business going on inside my head. In this room also, I started to go to counselling. She asked the first time, “Are you in a safe place? Are you in a comfortable situation?”. She smiled seeing me nodding my head. Sad truth, not all people have the space or room to talk about things. There were phone calls: the very important ones to unnecessary quickies, interviews to catch ups, hard conversation to casual jokes. This room allows me to access myself. My friends heard me shed a tear or two in some phone calls. They didn’t know what happened to me until then. They listened to my vulnerable voice notes expressing my gratitudes towards them. Yet, I didn’t know if they also drip a tear. Remember the notebooks? I reread the insides of it. My writings are no longer the same. It was too neat: proper uppercase and lowercase, straight lines on lineless pages. Things do change. Growth.
My age-old furniture doesn’t make it here. In this current bedroom, it’s all new. The previous closet, bed, and mirror sticks on where they first landed. I left behind the shadows, reflections, and memories in my childhood bedroom. There were scraps of craps that happened there. Some furniture are remembrances of something that made me feel low. The closet has uneven patches from when I scrape it every time I was pissed. The bed holds and molds me perfectly for I have cried in the same exact position for countless nights. The mirror doesn’t capture such beauty presented on TV screens, I was thrown seeing my own flesh. They are constant reminders of pitfalls. I have a new closet. I glued pictures of my loved ones there. On my new bed, I change my sleeping position every once in a while. So it won’t mold me like I was buried from my own tears and or load. Ah, the mirror. It captures something more; it captures something less. Soon, this novelty will become familiar.
It’s right to say this room has witnessed me feel a lot of emotions. Except one: falling in love. I hope my parents’ accusation will come true these days. Perhaps soon.
