LIX. Nostalgic Trespassing -

I fully embrace my new adulthood.

That mid-life crisis that causes you to say, “Oh God, I’m 20!”, had made its way about a month after I turned 20 and ended a week after I had called my mom, embarrassed at myself for my uncensored confession: “I feel like I’m growing up…. I don’t know, I just feel different!”

I am ready to grow older, gracefully of course.

However, I do not take kindly to the recent “open-houses” that my parents have hosted in their attempt to sell our house and move on.

I do not like people coming into my home, scrutinizing it with their beady eyes.

I do not like these people oohing and aahing and then being so brazen as to bargain the price that, as it is, hardly reflects the value of the home I grew up in.

Moving would be awesome though.

Just a disclaimer; it is almost unheard of that children from Indian families do not return home after college. The Indian child goes from home, to college, to graduate school if they so choose, perhaps pursue an internship elsewhere, but he/she always returns home and lives with the family…until marriage when the new bride or groom officially lives in a new home and not some place that is a means, (that functions to prevent homelessness), to an end (to accept an amazing job offer).

Indeed, moving would be awesome. Fresh out of college, I am ready for a new place to go along with my new mindset.

As much as I love my room, I would love to separate my sleeping space from my work space since the combination of bed and desk in room, once the norm, now never fails to remind me of my dorm-life from the past four years.

Instead of having a desk next to my once-canopied bed, my new bedroom will have a bed obviously, an armoire for my clothing, and a vanity mirror. (Taking care of myself has been exponentially increased since my obsessing over getting-into-an-Ivy League days, hence the mirror.)

A separate workspace, or study, with one long conference desk in the middle of a protective circle of books that are lined up from floor to just short of the ceiling, will be for  the four of us: My parents, my brother and I.

The reality of it all, is that I see that study as being my second room.

My brother is finishing off medical school outside of New York and is on call everyday. Therefore, the next time my brother will come home, much less for an extended period of time that would require him to make use of the study, is slim.

My parents’ work requires resources outside of the living space and so I highly doubt that they would use the study.

Oh hey there. That was another prospective buyer. They like the house, my home. Honestly, who wouldn’t? Why do I want to move again? Right, because it is time.

This is nostalgic trespassing - I should have made a “Do Not Enter” sign.

I hardly ever sit in my room anymore. Yet, whenever prospective buyers or investment-property seekers come bare-foot into my home, shoes taken off as per request, I take up residence in my room like an overly watchful TSA officer.

My room suits me to a tee. It really has matured along with me and has aged as well, to the ripe age of twenty-two.

It is time to move out and move on. As selfish as my desire to move may sound, it is really time for all four of us.

The realtor’s clients have walked around my house and there is less than a half-hour until the open-house is over, at which point my de-contamination mission begins: Opening windows, spraying Febreeze, and lighting scented candles.

My parents are not surprised at my antics but instead of annoyance, I sense their mutual desire to deny any type of foreign anything into our home.

This is nostalgic trespassing - I should have made a “Do Not Enter” sign.