My room is my sanctuary.

My room is my prison. 

I like to believe I have always had big ambitions. Frankly, sometimes I believe they are so big that I am embarrassed to voice them out loud. Perhaps out of fear of judgement. Perhaps out of an understanding of my own ridiculous limitations. Their enormity is an escape really; however, only until I accept that they are simply a front for a much simpler but largely devastating truth: the fear that I will fail. 

My desire for everything perfectly coincides with the anxiety that I will amount to nothing. 

The realisation always comes to fruition in the sanctity of my room. My room that I have spent years crafting. Every corner meticulously curated for my own comfort. I have spent more time in this space than I have anywhere else. My scent has seeped into the walls. Familiarity is etched onto every crevice. I would recognise it in complete darkness. I would remember it in a state of absolute forgetfulness. It is an extension of me, nothing can replicate its essence. 

Sometimes I am afraid that I make my room so comfortable because deep down I know I will never leave it. That I will remain in my mother’s house. That she will never step foot into mine. 

I will reside in this room, in my mother’s house, till she pawns me off to someone else’s mother. 

I live in this room. There is a hidden consolation and an external anguish that I will die in it. 

I think there is a sadness about leaving it behind. In order to attain what I have always desired, leaving is inevitable. It is nonnegotiable. I cannot take it with me. I cannot box it. I must build it over and over again. It must always be from scratch. It must be new. It must be fulfilled. 

Perhaps this reluctant abandonment is necessary. Perhaps therein lies self discovery. Who am I outside of this room?