It’s always strange being in my childhood bedroom again. It stopped being mine soon after I went to college; my youngest sister moved in, freeing up a room to become the guest room, so it’s been twenty-five years since it looked like my room. The curtains have changed, the bed and furniture, even the carpet (which is now a lovely shade of blue, after I’d suffered through years of it being some sort of puce color, I think).
One of my med student cousins (yes, I have more than one), Pradheep, is visiting my dad right now, shadowing him in his internal medicine practice and studying for upcoming exams. I was telling Pradheep last night about my room, how it used to have a princess bed with canopy, which I admit, I loved. Also walls covered in space posters and unicorn posters. He said he wanted to see a photo. Sadly, I think I may have failed in properly documenting that era of my life.
Not everything gets recorded. Should I have known that space and unicorn posters would someday be worth remembering? There was a massive one of Mars; I remember that, gloriously red. Some Star Trek characters, I think the main TOS cast. A Stonehenge at night, with a unicorn; I wrote the first poem I can recall about the poster, how the unicorn comes tapping. It was a terrible poem. Maybe some things are better forgotten. My impulse as a writer is always to record, record, record. Maybe it’s okay to let some details blur.