Zarni: Blog

 

In 8 days I will be getting on a plane and moving across the country to Seattle, Washington from small Binghamton, New York. Before that, I will be packing my green Kia Soul which I have named Vanessa with a few key items…My keyboard, some bags, a portrait of a photo I took in Santorini on my Europe backpacking trip, and a few other necessities. All of these items, stored carefully in Vanessa’s belly, will travel across the United States in some foreign truck, to a foreign place that I will eventually call my new home.

If you saw me today, however, you wouldn’t think I am the adventurous girl moving across the country. I am huddled up in the window seat of my old bedroom in my parents’ house, in pajama pants and no makeup- barely distinguishable from a high school girl.  While Bon Iver’s nostalgic music plays in the background, I feel like I need to write. I need to finally spill my guts on how I feel about this new big phase.

My room is basically baby blue with some seriously girly wallpaper around the top edge. I’m looking around and I see smiling faces in photo frames. I see different and much younger versions of myself with people that are still close to me and of course, many that are not. I have one photo frame with shells all around it; shells that I picked up in a beach in Capetown, South Africa while visiting my older sister and I stuck them on there with hot glue. I remember thinking that I wanted to keep that frame forever because it somehow symbolized some kind of rite of passage; me mingling with an older crowd and feeling ‘in’. I have a tennis trophy and some other odd awards all carefully framed and posed as if trying to remind me of those nights when I sat with my head hunched over an AP Chemistry book. Trying to remind me of obstacles I thought I would never overcome.

 

The thing about me is that I’ve got loads of trinkets. Little things I gathered and could never seem to part with. They use to drive my mom crazy because I barely ever had room for them but also never had the heart to throw anything out. My room has become somewhat of a storage space.

 

My little trinkets are candles from first dates, those little Angel ornaments people give each other around Christmas, concert tickets, old stuffed animals, roller skates, a state quarter collection set, small cards, keep sake boxes, a lava lamp from when I thought those were really cool. I actually endured my very first break up with that lava lamp by turning it on at night with all the other lights off and letting myself feel sad for a while. I remember that so well. There is also a painting of when I was Muzzy in my High School’s production of Thoroughly Modern Millie hanging in such a evergreen way on my baby blue wall.

 

The endearing, yet terribly sad thing about these trinkets is that they are my entire teenage life- my entire life before today. They are now just items taking up space in my parents’ house, but I can see the look in my mother’s eyes when she looks at my clutter and imagines that she will eventually have to get rid of some of it. Where do they go? All those little physical memories… They aren’t relevant to the past, to the present or to the future anymore. I can’t wrap my mind around this. It’s a very… very beautiful and human thing. Standing in the middle of a room that use to be a fort, a place of solace, a place of belonging, a place where the door would shut and I would avoid rebel against my parents, a place where secrets where made and kept, and a place where parts of me were made and kept. But that’s not something you can explain to other people. But everybody that has ever had a bedroom knows this.

 

The most unique part about my room is the large desk/cupboard/window seat unit that my step dad built with his bare hands. I haven’t sat in this window seat in about 4 years while I was off at college studying…partying…playing…writing music…dating…learning… laughing…crying…stressing…wondering…planning… growing.

I sat in it every day for 5 years before all that.

 

There are so many things greater than me, in this moment. I wonder, for instance, how in the world my parents are going to do it. I wonder how much it takes to invest an entire life into somebody and then setting them free into the world, knowing very well that you want them to have at it, but also knowing that you’ve dreaded this day for as long as you could remember. As I lean on baby blue wall, with a tear running down my face, I have more respect and admiration for my parents than ever before.

 

I’m leaving the room but it is staying in their house.

 

My life is playing out before me in pictures and boxes, and in decisions of what to bring with me and what to leave behind. My life is playing out before me in the sweet way that my dad’s eyes filled briefly with tears on Christmas, acknowledging the fact that it is our last Christmas of me being a resident in this house.

 

The three of us are close because it was only my stepdad, mom and I that picked up everything we knew and moved from South Africa to this small town. We have done everything together. We have made it all together. And of course with close family, you always do continue doing that. But now, road the three of us have walked is branching off. I’m so excited about getting to make my own start, my own choices, my own way of making a home, my own way of beautiful struggle into my profession as a musician.

 

 I am excited to eat peanut butter and jelly as much as I might need to. I’m excited to wear holes into my jeans. I’m into that kind of adventure and journey because if you know you’re going to get out of it, then you know it’s just going to be a great story to tell. I’m not overwhelmed by the prospect of my new life, of not knowing anybody, of possibly making mistakes without the guidance of my parents… I’m overwhelmed by how incredibly human I am feeling. In this moment, time is still and I am swimming in the bird’s eye view of my life and how quickly the time has already passed. I have kept myself busy, and made amazing memories, so it’s all one big, somewhat chaotic, bittersweet collage.

We are all so different, but I guess I am feeling so incredibly raw and human because I know that it is these moments that bind us. Everybody has to move on at some point whether it is from a traumatic experience, or the inevitability of aging. Surely I’m not the only college grad that has ever sat on the carpet of her room and looked at everything with such numbness yet with the weight of an entire adolescence. That paradox is not something you can really understand until you’ve been there. I am ending and beginning at the same time.

 

If I could give my advice to anybody younger than myself…anybody at that cusp of taking everything so very seriously and taking nothing very seriously… I would have so many things to say. I would say:

1. Make sure you have lots of trinkets. They are going to be painful. You’re going to hate the clutter and so is your mom. But keep that movie stub of that night where you and your friends laughed so much throughout the movie that you barely watched it. Keep that trophy of your hard earned hours in afterschool sports. Keep the photos of your ex boyfriends and girlfriends because at some point, believe it or not, you won’t hate that person. You’ll look at it, with maybe a slight smile across your face and you won’t even notice yourself tracing your finger along the silver edge of the photo frame…almost in gratitude.

 

2. Be good to your parents. Be good to your parents. Be good to your parents. I can’t say that one enough.

 

You’ll see what I mean when your parents are standing in the driveway where you use to ride your bike, your dad with a protective arm over your mother’s shoulder and both of them just beaming. Beaming with excitement, and extreme sadness. Eyes sparkling from tears and from memories. They will seem almost childlike in this moment with how eager they are to love and support you no matter what mess you might make. It’s not a love you will ever receive anywhere else. You will see this through the rearview mirror of your car as you are driving away. I would bet that you will feel things that you could not plan for because I know that I did. But make sure that when you drive away however, that your parents know exactly how much you appreciate what they have done for you. Because odds are, they are letting go of so much more than you could comprehend until you have your own kids, and they are driving off to the next phase of life, and they no longer need your day-to-day guidance. This new beginning, and all the other new beginnings will be possible for you… because of them.

 

3. The last thing I would want to say is Enjoy. Every. Day. And be good to yourself. Enjoy at least one thing about every day. Try to make sure you are always in ratio 1:3. One thing you wish was different, and three things you are grateful for. I have so much ahead of me and I am just a baby in the adult world. But I know that it was just yesterday when I graduated from High School, stressed about college, then went to college, loved college and now my college things are in boxes in the garage of my house and I will probably throw a lot of it away. It truly does go so quickly, so not appreciating the beautiful moments along the way is most simply put…a total crime.

 

I can stand in my room with the most satisfied feeling in my heart because I know I did everything I could to make my adolescence memorable. I learned from my mistakes. I surrounded myself with people that made me feel valued. When I wasn’t happy, I decided to be happy.  I appreciated my parents. I hugged them a lot. I told them I loved them a lot. I said thank you a lot. I could never express enough, but internally, I am always grateful for them. I took a lot of risks. I made time to get to know myself. I made time to improve myself, and to reward myself. I loved many people with no reservations, and definitely got hurt sometimes but at least I was able to really feel. 

Now, as difficult as it is to leave this all behind- my baby blue room and everything tied to it- packing the boxes, sorting the clothing, and finally stripping down …really stripping down to the bare necessities is so very necessary.  I am so ready for new experiences, for new mistakes, for new friends, and new decisions…for new experiences in my musical career as a professional at last, for new memories with my parents, and a thousand new ways of being good to them. And of course…for new trinkets.

 

 

trin·ket noun \ˈtriŋ-kət\

 

Definition of TRINKET

1

: a small ornament (as a jewel or ring)

2

: a small article of equipment

3

: a thing of little value : trifle