The Outside Looking In: A Glimpse into my Bedroom Window

Through the bedroom windows of her shoebox apartment on North Bennet Street, a young girl can be seen pinning up a picture that has fallen off of her heart shaped bulletin board. In examining long enough, one could notice her repeat this practice again and again— nothing short of clockwork. The picture is pinned, she types away at her desk contentedly, and it inevitably falls yet again. Though a beat passes and it almost seems as if she might finally shove it in a drawer and accept defeat, that time never comes. With the help of a little white thumbtack she pulls from a stash in her desk, the picture returns to the board, and there is an unwavering sense that everything is in its place once more.

In the newly decorated room of her first ever apartment, you see, everything has a home—at least from the outside looking in. While an outsider may mistake the posters, flowers and knick knacks which line her walls as, at best, a stylistic choice, the girl cherishes each for their sentimental value. The five prints above her bed, strewed with vibrant orange, teal, blue, yellow and sage hues, were carefully curated on her ninety day excursion to study in Europe. One is from Prague, another from Berlin, and yet another from Paris, each holding a memory of an experience she holds close to her heart. The mirror she checks her makeup in every morning was gifted from her grandparents on their shared journey to Madrid, a memento from a trip they had been planning for as long as she could remember. On hard days, she can be seen taking the rosary from its place above her desk and praying a decade, not entirely sure if anyone is listening but finding comfort in the practice nonetheless.

Pictures of friends and family beam from seemingly every angle of the little haven, strategically placed so she sees them as she gets dressed in the morning, as she works at her desk in the daytime and as she snuggles up in bed in the evening. While some view such pictures as merely decorative, this girl never has. She treasures each one, and lovingly gazes at the faces who smile back at her each morning, each afternoon, and each night. In the midst of even her busiest days, she can be seen picking up her phone and talking for hours, calling her grandparents, mother, father, sister, brothers, boyfriend, friends as she paces around the room excitedly. A glow is immediately illuminated on her face, shining ever so brightly as she reconnects with her home even 1,500 miles from it.

Though the girls childhood bedroom in Miami had never been the tidiest or most organized, that all changed the second she moved to Boston and began discovering herself as a young woman. As she carefully placed each wrinkled poster, each fake flower, each handwritten note on her walls, she was setting an intention to hold her most cherished moments dear each and every day. When she wakes each morning and takes in the cozy comfort of the home she created, she is reminded of who she loves, what she enjoys, and why she hopes to make each day just as worthy of treasuring. While the average N. Bennet passerby may never understand why the girl incessantly re-pins a simple picture time and time again, she does so nonetheless. As that passerby walked along, bewildered, they did not get the chance to see what happened after the picture made its way back to its home on the wall. From her baby pink desk chair facing the bulletin board, the girl smiled softly, content with the knowledge her most valuable treasure is right where it belongs.