Last month I went back to my parents’ house in Ohio to help them clean out the house. They were selling the place and moving to Florida. My job was to empty the bedroom in the attic.
That was my room from age twelve to eighteen.
I pushed the door open and smelled old wood and dust. The bed was long gone. Left behind were a few cardboard boxes and a dusty teddy bear. I picked it up and remembered carrying it everywhere when I was six. Then at some point I just forgot about it.
In one box I found a yearbook from my junior year. There was someone’s signature with a little smiley face. It took me a while to remember who it was. Then the memory came back all at once. We used to be so close. Then we had a fight over something small. I can’t even remember what it was anymore. But every time I think of that person, there’s still a small ache.
It hit me: if I had known back then that I wouldn’t even remember the reason for the fight ten years later, would I have been so stubborn? The answer was probably yes. But now I understand that most of what stays with me isn’t a lesson. It’s just a feeling. That someone was there, and then they left.
I put the yearbook in my bag. I washed the teddy bear and put it on the arm of my couch. Sometimes when I see it, I think of that kid who believed everything could last forever. Things leave. But that doesn’t mean they were never there. Those people are no longer part of my life. But they changed me. And maybe that’s enough.
