Heartbreak

I like spaces.

I like to assign meaning to them, to designate memory to geography in hopes that I can go to a place and remember a specific time in my life.

For me, stories live in these spaces — and that’s how we turn the world into our own personal library.

My apartment was the first space that I ever got to myself.

It was a small place — a shoebox, really — just a narrow single bed, a study table, high cabinets I can barely reach, and my own bathroom.

But I loved it.

I loved that little shoebox room so much.

Who knew you could discover so much of yourself in a 10sqm room?

That so much change could happen in 3 months?

In Room 4, I discovered that I did like sleeping in.

That I liked to eat healthy shit and religiously kept my space clean because my mom raised me so.

That I left hair everywhere.

That I loved fanciful things like art prints and fairy lights and matching duvets.

That I cared about having a duvet at all.

Room 4 smelled like pineapple and sage that first month, but when I ran out of that diffuser I switched to green tea, and whenever I get a whiff of either one, I remember Room 4 — small and neat and wonderful and mine.

I moved in on December 1st, 2019 — the last normal Christmas season before Everything Happened.

The apartment was inside a residential village, in a gated home of an elderly woman who was super active for her age. They had a small courtyard where the grass was always green and where they kept a small fruitbearing tree at the very center.

When Madam wanted to show off or had family over, she'd turn on all the garden lights — red, and blue, and green — and somewhere, someone would be playing the piano.

If you opened the windows to Room 4, you'd see a huge hotel looming over the village like a fairytale castle.

Room 4 instantly became my favorite space.

I stayed there for a grand total of 3 months.

And then Everything Happened and there was no reason for me to stay so far from the family, not when I no longer needed to work in the city anyhow.

I left in March, to hunker down for two weeks, but we all know how that turned out.

I held out hope like everyone else at that time — it was only going to be 2 weeks, wasn't it? Until the days stretched into weeks that turned into months and then suddenly my lease was up and there was no point in delaying it any longer: I had to come back for my things and clear out my little space.

It was a sunny day when I finally made my way back to the city.

Madam's bougainvilleas were in full bloom. It was one of those days where the island wanted to show off just how perfect it is in the summertime — but all around me the city felt tense and lonely. Apartments lay empty. Shops were closed. People were dead. Madam and her Caretaker wore their masks and gave me wide berth as I entered the gate.

I opened the door to Room 4.

Sunshine streamed through the windows. Beyond it, the fairy tale castle hotel looked empty in the distance. My art prints had fallen off the wall and landed on the dusty space beneath the creaky bed. A thin film of dust covered my books, and all of my snacks were expired.

In the wake of the pandemic, Room 4 looked like an abandoned shell. I felt like I was, too.

But it still smelled like me, at least.

Of sage and green tea and the laundry detergent they used at the corner laundromat.

And it was in that moment that I said to myself, if I could hug a room I would.

If I could hold this space in my arms and thank it and tell it I wish we'd never had to go our separate ways I would.

But I can't.

So, I just did what any other normal, sane person would: sobbed while I packed my bags and sorted my things and threw out the trash.

I took down my fairy lights. I folded my duvet. I dusted off my books and swept the floor and emptied the tall cabinets.

The caretaker helped me haul my heavy bags in the trunk of the rental car. I don't remember her name. I give the keys — my keys —back.

With the last of my stuff put away, I closed the trunk. Got in the car. My dad backed out of their driveway full of bougainvilleas. He thanked Madam and the caretaker for the snacks.

And then I waved goodbye to my erstwhile landlady and to her caretaker and to the house with flowers — and to the castle beyond my window and to the courtyard where piano notes fluttered—

and to Room 4, the first place that I ever had to myself. The place where I found myself.

The brown gate creaked close.

And as we drove away, I felt my heart break into two.