~Hoarding~

So I just spent the majority of this week clearing out my bedroom. Not just tidying it, moving all the crap into the new extension. I can't say I wasn't happy that I was getting a bigger room and I had the chance to decorate it all by myself ie. I could have whatever I wanted in it furniture and decorationwise as long as it was cheap enough :p But when I was faced with the task of emptying my old room... it was a bit daunting.

I'm a hoarder, I'll admit it. I keep things that I might use again or that I might play with. Now came the time to get rid of all of that. My mum was supposedly helping me but needless to say she just ended up being really irritating, for a number of reasons. Although actually, she did help, I just couldn't see that at the time :p

So anyway, there's this one cupboard in my room that hardly ever gets opened because it's just filled with junk and I did keep postponing until eventually it was the only thing left to empty. So yesterday afternoon I sat down to sort through years of forgotten presents and projects. I was already kinda angry at my mum so I was taking out the more indestructible items first and just chucking them behind me. That just led to me and my mum having another argument where I ended up telling her that half of it was probably broken anyway to which she replied "Why the hell have you still got it then?" "...I don't know."

Today I'm off to work for a week in my uncle's pub in Worcester and I am absolutely sheeiting myself. Last night I was trying to work out why the hell I'm so scared - it's an opportunity to work, get money, that's good right? And I realised, I kept that stuff because I didn't want to let go. Getting rid of it meant I was finally growing up and I think everyone wants to stay a child forever - it's simple and you still have so much freedom in what you want to do. This new bedroom means a step into a more grown up life, even if act immature :p And it's the same with this coming week - I'm earning money for myself and losing some of the dependency I have on my parents - I'm growing up.

And it's making me realise that after this summer, everything changes.

#Taorem...

Before we moved inland, I had a friend I’d never been without. For now, we’ll call him Taorem, though his real name is so much more beautiful.

We were born in the same hospital, in the same month, the same week. We practically lived in each other’s houses, shared families even. This meant that as children we were almost inseparable. Yet we were often kept apart. We could hardly spend half a day without launching into an explosive fight – mostly verbal, sometimes physical. So we were separated – “for our own good.”

Really, all we were doing was marking our territory, laying down the boundaries – we shared so much that it was often unclear to us what belonged to the other.

Throughout our early years, we spent much of our time creating new worlds to explore – urban jungles in the park or rich forests under our duvets. However, it wasn’t long before everything changed. In fact, it wasn’t long after our young childhood freedom and innocence was stolen by the enforced conscription of education that our world collapsed. He had to leave – to be with his family Taorem had to follow his parents to a strange country, a different world that seemed a lifetime away. Along with his brother, he walked away from the only place we knew.

Only a couple of years later I too had to follow my family to the land she grew up in. It was as strange to me as any foreign country I’d been to – there were no beaches, no seaweed, no seagulls. How could I live somewhere so far from the untamed wildness of the sea? How could I belong here?

But part of me was glad to have left behind the empty memories of joy I’d had on the coast. Without Taorem I felt I was somehow missing something, like I’d lost an important part of life, but being so young I had no idea what this was, what it meant. With this new land came the possibility of new life and the chance that I could work out what it was I was missing, solve this puzzle that twisted my young mind into knots.

When we were little, our parents joked that we were an old married couple. Now I wonder whether they were witnessing the beginnings of an eternal bond. Of course, I have no idea whether he still thinks of me, or if he’s found the thing I’ve always been searching for since he left. I thought I’d found it once but I must have been lying to myself.
After Taorem left, I didn’t realise that part of me had followed him to his new life. It resides with him, whether he knows it or not. I try to call it back but it refuses, still clinging to him and the hope that one day he might return. It never will come back to me unless I somehow manage to unhook its claws from the empty promise of his reappearance.

We were young, so young, that I never knew what it was that I felt for him – Taorem was like my brother and yet he was so much more than that. I could never explain how it was but I’d always thought that nothing could keep us apart – even through the strained efforts of teachers to separate us we always ended up together somehow.

And now, sometimes it’s all I can do to stop myself thinking of him – seeing him, hearing him, feeling him.

If he doesn’t remember there’s nothing I can do, but I can never forget Taorem.