Flights of Fancy

I stand in front of my parent's house, the building that served me as a home years ago. The beige paint on the wooden fences surrounding the complex of identical 3-story houses is chipping off bit by bit, revealing the grey wood beneath. Flicking up the latch on the gate, I step into the tiny garden, barely large enough to hold a few flower pots. The hours my mother spent filling them with bright blue forget-me-nots and pale yellow petunias have not left a trace - the ceramic pots have overgrown with weeds and dandelions.

I dig inside my leather backpack for the golden pair of keys and pull them out with a familiar twinkling sound - returning to my childhood home, the jingle of my old keys is the first sound that welcomes me. Once inside, I put my shoes on an empty rack and climb the first flight of stairs, listening to my quiet breathing, being the only living soul in the house. I cling to my brand new backpack with both hands, the only medium between my adult life with its high-strung business men, prestigious jobs and expensive clothing; and my childhood days, full of homework, trips with friends and irresponsibility. I glance around the living room, the dust floating around lazily between the thin sunrays creeping in from the half-closed blinds. The black armchair sits in the same corner as it used to when I still lived here, but as I near it, I notice the seat and the armrests look shabby and worn out. I step quietly, as if to not let the spirits of the past know that I have returned after so many years.

Absorbed in thought, I drift over to the piano, swipe my hand over the polished black wood and immediately regret my action. Coughing the freshly risen dust out of my nose, I lift the key cover and jab my fingers at a sequence of notes my piano teacher engraved in my memory at the age of nine. I play the short melody again and remember my young self, complaining loudly about practicing as my mother chopped vegetables in the kitchen with the TV on, drowning out my whining.

Replacing the key cover, I turn and make my way up the flight of stairs leading to the third floor, stopping on the landing to straighten a stack of lopsided books. As I turn down the dark hall leading to my old bedroom, I step on the area of the floor that makes an impossibly loud squeaking sound. A wide grin spreads across my face as I recall the nights I spent sneaking past it when I was a teenager, trying not to notify my father that I was still up.

I push down on the silver handle of my white door and open it in one swift movement. I am standing in the doorway of my teenage sanctuary with its brown walls, two windows and white furniture. As I step into the middle of the room and glance around, I see that nothing has been moved from the spot I have left it in – my first real guitar is still standing in its corner; my once-new headphones are neatly put away in their black case; the beige stuffed bunny is sitting on the nightstand. Memories of high school flood my mind as my gaze falls on the wall scroll of my favorite boy band. At once, one of their songs starts blaring in the back of my brain, even though I had not heard it from the time I moved away from home. Somehow, the years I had spent living in the middle of a busy city, away from this quiet neighborhood, do not have an impact on my memory of the clear vocals and the low beat.

Stepping around my small bed, I silently laugh at my younger self, who always wanted a bigger one but never followed through with her plans of refurnishing her bedroom – I may have changed some of my other bad habits, but a quality like procrastination is difficult to get rid of. I open the bottom drawer of my nightstand and pick up what I was expecting to find. I carefully leaf through the pages of my old journal, picking up scattered words and phrases, painting a picture of what my life had been like several decades ago. I seemed so free, only thinking of grades and boys.

I put the tattered journal back in its place and make a mental note of coming back a few months down the road to transport a few more of my belongings to my apartment. Before leave the room, I take a dusty picture frame off my desk and put it away carefully inside my backpack. It holds a small photo from high school, showing my two oldest friends laughing away together, both of whom have lived a part of my journey with me, but have taken different paths to continue on their own.