Keywords: Ashoka University, turning twenty, growing up, letting go
The folded posters lay on my desk, recently taken down. My sticky hands placed them on the table, and I wondered what to do about the marks on the wall. The marks held meaning, the wall screamed at me. They were the signs of me letting go of those old prejudices, thinking that having them would change something, and make me fit in with the others. But now, you want to be just like the others, the walls echoed again.
“And what will you do with us?” came a shrill voice from the back of the room. It was the books on my bookshelf, floating slightly, causing cracks down the wall. They had been there since I had learned to speak—because as soon as I learned to talk, I learned to read. All my other aunts and cousins had stored their old books in attics or basements. “But you still read us sometimes,” they chimed in.
Yes, I did. I had plenty of fantasy, mystery, and random books gifted over the years. Some had annotations in my favorite scented marker from childhood, a strawberry scent I had saved, only using it in my teens out of fear of it running out. The pages of my books still carried that scent. I knew I had too many—I’d been told that often enough. When they no longer fit on the shelf, their new home became my desk. My desk now housed newer books and my posters. Nearby, my bedside table overflowed with small trinkets that tumbled out whenever I opened it. Among these trinkets was a box of beads I had collected over the years, from all the jewelry-making kits I bought as a child. I had a habit of never throwing things away, and now all the beads sat in a small, see-through box. They clinked softly, asking, “Where will we go?” I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’d store them away, give them to someone, or create something out of them. For now, they stayed on my desk.
A sudden glitch, a static noise, came from my phone. “Open us,” it beckoned. It led me to Wattpad and Ao3, where fanfictions crowded my library. “Will we get deleted?” they glitched. I didn’t know. They took up storage, but I had stayed up countless nights reading them, and once in a while, I still did. Would it be embarrassing to keep them on my phone? I wasn’t sure. For now, the phone stayed on my desk.
My dressing table was cluttered with old makeup and skincare products. Some I still used, others had long passed their expiration date. There was so much that there wasn’t even room for new items. I wanted to throw them out, but what if I needed them someday? I thought about moving them to my desk, but the desk was already overflowing, on the verge of spilling over or collapsing. I looked at the things there, carefully preserved over the years, sometimes hidden because I didn’t want anyone to know I liked those things. Now, they were all at risk of spilling out, tearing apart. Could I really let my youth, my teenage years, fall apart so easily? The last seven years of my life—the essence of them—sat on this desk, a desk I never wanted but kept around for storage. Now, as I approached twenty, would it be shameful to hold onto these things? Did I need to start reading self-help books, redecorating my room with minimalist décor?
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let it all go so easily. Maybe I would, eventually, but not now. Even if I was about to turn 20, I would still be that teenage girl, I thought. And with that, I tossed the desk out of my room.