So this is my maiden voyage into blogger land. And I can totally use the word maiden because, well, I'm popping my blogging cherry, which is pretty much the only cherry I have left to pop.
Moving on...
I am, at the moment, sitting on the very bed in which I lost my virginity 21 years ago. TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO. I'm not sure if I'm more disturbed by the fact that I'm old enough to have lost my virginity that long ago or the fact that this bed is still in the room where it happened. My folks have been talking about changing the room I grew up in into something else for years. But. Here it all still is. Right down to the Duran Duran cut outs from the newspaper when they played in Live Aid. The FIRST Live Aid. Somewhere there exists almost all of the two days of that show on videocassette. Since I wasn't allowed to go I tortured my parents me making them tape all of it.
Other things worth noting in my room: I shelving unit which, at its top, houses a multitude of stuffed animals including a small bear that is nestled inside of a bag with "Class of '84" inscribed on it. '84 was the year I was done with middle school. I don't know what it is, but here in suburban Philadelphia, they celebrate things like middle school graduation. Do other places do that too, or is there just something in the water here?
Let's see...what else? Ah yes..a variety of stickers with political slogans. A small window sticker with a pink triangle on it. A couple about the government and AIDS and another demanding abortion rights. Oddly, there's a copy of the poem "Footprints" as well. Well that's a weird little hiccup in an an otherwise budding queer-activist's bedroom. I don't even remember what the hell that was all about. Go figure...
Last time I was here to visit, I discovered a purse I'd had that was old enough to have come back into fashion again. Brought it home to Brooklyn too, and got loads of compliments on it. As much as I haven't lived in this room for close to 20 years, I think that, when my parents do finally get rid of all this stuff and turn my old room into something they can use, I'm going to feel kind of empty inside. No matter what else has gone on in my sometimes quite...uhm...colorful life, there has always been this to come to. Even though I didn't come too often.
When I was growing up, this room kind of felt like a prison. It was my parent's house and I couldn't just get up and go whenever I felt like it. My parents didn't allow for that kind of stuff. We clashed all the time, especially my mom and me. All I ever wanted to do was leave. To New York, specifically. Now that I've been living in New York for 17 years and have mellowed considerably, this place, this room with its windows open to let in the sounds and the cool breeze of early summer, is a haven to me. I've come full circle and I hope that, no matter what, there will always be a place here for me to rest my head...
