Chapter Nineteen: Turning Point (~jinghan)

Note from the author: I meant to write this chapter two weeks ago, so this is in a way outdated news. But I feel like it’s an important chapter for you to be able to read, so I will write it like it was in the moment.

Picture this: an underwater scene of a swimmer in slow motion doing a tumble turn at the end of the lane. Calm blue liquid surrounds him and little pockets of air ricochet in a slow motion sort of way from the shifting of his skin against the water. And then at just the right moment his feet slide into place again the wall and with a flexing of muscles he propels himself forwards…

What is a turning point?

If you ask a mathematician (even one that is still in secondary school) they might tell you that it is where the gradient of a graph goes from negative to zero and then to positive (or vice versa).

If you ask someone studied in literature, they might say that it is a plot device where the protagonist’s past misfortune starts to turn towards positive character growth (or vice versa).

Which ever turning point you take, I think I have finally reached mine. In this haphazard semester tainted by death and the reality of life and the tiredness of studying.

It all started when I got home late one night after daydreaming about having a brand new space all to myself to make mine, and how I have outgrown the habits that inhabit my room. “What you need to do is completely throw out everything and completely redesign your room,” my boyfriend had told me.

I felt a little bit hesitant about this idea. My ceiling is dangling with paper cranes (1100 of them) and dream catchers and even a hanging plant. My walls are saturated by sticky notes, pictures lovingly drawn by friends, jewellery (yes on the walls) and even that clock I decorated in kindergarten that has since stopped ticking. It’s not than just a room, it’s a living organism growing, undergoing mitosis and evolving it’s own personality. It’s not just my room, it is the roomification* of who I am.

But I get home that night and I look at my room, and a sudden spontaneity overtakes me. I open the glass door of my display cabinet and start taking things out – everything. Nothing is spared, not the little ceramic box with my milk teeth, not the little fairy statuettes, not the old art projects, not the shell collections, not the handmade candles. I make a pile of things I want to throw out. I put the things I can’t bare to throw out (yet) into ‘archive’ boxes to hide in the back of shelves. I find the things that suit my current taste and put them in space artistic ways in the now empty shelves.

I find a stack of old music concert programs, athletics day  booklets and school mass programs in a box. I don’t know what I was saving these for… so I throw them all away.

I mop up all the dust. And I stand back and admire my work. It’s good. I feel like I can breath again. I feel like my room is a place I want to be in again. Not a place that I feel the need to constantly escape – some hollow point, some dying star I’m orbiting around.

The next day I I procure myself a large stack of multi-coloured sticky notes and write out everything I need to do on them. I cut them out into little strips and stick them to the edge of my self. One for each task. I arrange them into a priority list. And I go about doing them.

Every time I complete something I tear it off, scrunch it up (an important step) and throw it away. It’s highly therapeutic for a stress-toiled mind. (And maybe even good for a procrastination-toiled mind.) Finally my to-do list has been moved out of my brain and into something tangible – leaving space for me to absorb myself with the tasks at hand. I walk home each day knowing exactly which blue sticky tag I want to tackle after dinner. I don’t need to worry about the others, they’ll still be there unforgotten when I finish, and will be allocated their time tomorrow.

I’m getting out of bed in a good mood. I’m absorbing myself in my studies (finally). I’m finding time to do other things (like reading and playing the harp). Things are finally turning around.

A turning point!

…

And then my boyfriend breaks up with me.

To be continued…

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*like personification but of rooms