Rooms R Us

My own room for the first time ever. I could hardly wait!

I didn't have to sleep with other people in the room anymore...a place where I could close the door and escape into daydreams, fantasies, and PRIVACY.

My parents even found a used vanity table with a mirror and chair for my room. The cosmetics on the vanity crowded my stuffed animals. I knew sooner or later there would not be room for both.

I felt so feminine and grown-up in the vanity's mirror seeing the reflection of a future acclaimed actress or best-selling author.

The closet held only "my" things, no one else's.

My storybook dolls, timeless princesses adorned in beautiful gowns and tiaras, slept undisturbed in their plastic, see-through boxes, unspoiled and forever perfect. Like Sleeping Beauty, they awaited the kiss of the handsome prince to awaken them.

I would transform my room into a sanctuary, dreamscape, and bigger-than-life movie starring me. Sometimes the room became a time machine transporting me to a wonderful future filled with love, romance and riches.

On my fantasy stage, I would confront my parents and win; accept the Oscar graciously; be crowned Miss America; and passionately kiss the senior class president.

It was here where I rehearsed for life; and, all my stories had happy, victorious endings written, produced and directed from the theatre of my mind.

Years later, I shared my room, this time with my husband. How strange to be lying there beside him with my parents in the next room. I felt self conscious about the squeaky bedsprings and refused to make love, for somehow that would be sacrilege.

In this place, nothing in reality could compare to the exquisite romances of my girlhood fantasies.

After my divorce, I stayed in my room for the last time. The house was empty. My parents had divorced long ago and my mother had passed. I went there with a man I cared for but had no plans to marry.

As I lay beside him, memories and ghosts swept over me. I wept as I realized my lovely, girlhood dreams had shattered in the outside world.

Now I possessed wisdom and experience, but the innocent girl imagining her first kiss was gone forever.


Copyright © Erana Leiken, 2009-10 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED