When You Change Your Environment

Everyone was a teenager once, which means everyone dreamed of the day they would become a true adult. Y’know, feel it deep in your bones that you have grown up and can be taken seriously now. If you’re anything like me, that day would be your eighteenth birthday because what more validation do you need than the legal definition of an adult?

Except, I spent my eighteenth birthday at Disney Springs’s T-Rex Cafe with some friends to reminisce my childhood and went back home to my parents house that night. I felt nowhere near adulthood as I curled up under the covers watching comfort Minecraft videos and sipping the water I asked Mom to bring me.

The thought crossed my mind that nothing really changed from the last night of my seventeenth year to the first night of my eighteenth. Perhaps true and physical change was needed to feel something different. To feel mature.

Luckily, a month later I would move into my college’s cinder block prison, or as some would call it, dormitory.

I roomed with three roommates—some of the loveliest girls you will meet—and brought with me the essentials: pink sheets and a yellow comforter, the Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach gag-gift a friend found for my birthday, some toiletries, and my trusty laptop. Yes, that really was it. All those years in middle and high school watching dorm tour and move-in vlogs just to bring not one poster.

You’d like an explanation. I get it. Future me now is looking for one too.

I never moved once in my life, and the only advice I had was from those very same dorm decor vlogs: don’t bring any extra items you don’t need. So, I followed this faithfully. I assumed if I found a need for an item, I would promptly fill it later on. Seems straightforward, but I was actually just falling back into that sickly common illness we all catch: procrastination.

I was and still am an ambitious student, but college is no cliquey high school playground. I joined as many clubs and experiences as I could, got hired at my first real job, and tried balancing my rookie mistake of a 16 credit freshman schedule. In the thick of the first semester, I had already set myself up for failure the rest of the year, and it all rooted back to my environment, my room.

Here’s the hard truth. That cute four-bed, two-bath bougie dorm I bargained my meal plan for with chore-perfect and pleasant roommates didn’t feel like a home. There’s a few reasons for that.

1) I was so busy I was never physically there long enough to consider it anything more than a place to snooze.

2) I let my roommates do all the decorating, so it felt like I was living in their place, not our place.

3) I didn’t try to make it my home.

I believe our rooms are a reflection of our state of mind. I had nothing in my environment that screamed me, so I ended up making the place “feel like home” by letting my laundry pile up to the height of the drawers and leaving dishes on the bedside desk. It’s the same laziness I was used to in my childhood home. Heathen behavior, I know. You can tell the kind of state of mind I was in, huh?

The final nail in the coffin for this whole college dorm experience was the location. I could never escape college. I was literally a two-minute walk from half of my classes since I lived right outside the film school. There was no decompression for my mindset, I was in college mode 24/7, even in my sleep! I frequently had dreams about the classes I had the upcoming day when all I really wanted was a dream about a slow burn romance with Brad Pitt on the set of Anabelle (yes, this is a real dream I had and yes it was spectacular).

Regardless, I scraped by with some burn-out my first year of college and speedily moved out before everyone else.

I thought things would be better as I returned home to my parents’ house. There’s the first red flag. It was no longer my house, it was my parents’ place that I get to visit from time to time. The childhood home. Notice how that last sentence didn’t include “adult.” I believed I was an adult now, so this home couldn’t be the space I craved to bloom in even if I wanted it to be.

One plus: I was much more cleanly now. I was overly conscious about my roommates hating me so I became a quick dish cleaner after every meal and tidied shared spaces when I could. However, familiar places bring out familiar behavior, and I slowly sunk into my old childish habits of conveniently forgetting dishes in my room that Mom would see and take to the wash herself. My laundry piled up. My bathroom sink was unorganized and only deciphered by the madwoman that made it that way. It took me two-weeks to finally unpack the dorm things because I knew I wouldn’t be here long. I moved out a new place in a few months, so why move back in here?

The in-between time at the family house gave me some time to ponder what my new living would be like.

I made arrangements to rent the room of a college buddy’s place for a pretty great deal and with the promise I could bring along my cat, Honey, free of charge.

Today, I live here. I recently moved in, and it has actually been life changing. I shared the experience with my comrade, Honey. I’ll let her perspective paint a more simpler picture of the message I am getting at.

Honey is a COVID Kitty, which makes her just around six years old now. Like me, she has spent basically her entire life in my childhood home with me, my big ogre of a dog, her nemesis (my father), and her favorite person in the whole world (my mother). The middle two of that list would cause some tension for her, and she was always a tragically aloof cat because her coat is pure silk. You couldn’t hold her for more than five seconds before earning some claws in your forearm, and if you were petting her it was because she was petting you. She was a silent little devil. I genuinely only heard her meow maybe five or six times in my entire time knowing her. She would cry and prrrrp! but never meow or purr. I adopted her for an emotional support animal that I could cuddle, but I had to compromise with having just her cool cat aura bless my presence.

My father rejoiced at the idea of the new apartment when he found out Honey would be coming along with me. Honey, unable to speak languages, did not know anything of the matter which is exactly why she yowled and cried the whole half-hour drive to the new place.

Oh, did she find her voice.

I actually think the car ride was her great awakening where she discovered her vocal cords for the first time because any moment she could she would just meow the loudest meow she could muster that of course sounded awkward because she only spoke silence before this. In any case, I was proud of her and thought it was cute.

The new place is gorgeous by the way. My roommate decorated it with furniture she painted herself and a pretty white and blue color scheme I would adopt myself in my own room. There’s plenty of sun and new appliances. Heaven!

For Honey, I made my new bedroom cat-friendly with perches, scratchers, and toys, much to her liking. Especially the toys, since she was never able to play with any at the old house due to the hungry dog eating any feathered object in sight and insisting he was the one you were trying to play with.

It took her about three days before she was ready to conquer the hallway outside my new bedroom, then the fifth day she had just about full reign of the new crib.

Honey was a brand new cat.

I couldn’t believe this was the same cat. She had so much confidence that she wouldn’t be chased by a big beast or snickered at by a mean man that she sprawled right out across the tiled floors with her big fluffy belly to the ceiling. She happily meowed, she never once used her claws against you even if you pet her over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over-again, she played viciously with endless energy, and she ate out of cute cat bowls finally instead of old metal bowls (she was always very texture sensitive). As an extrovert, I can’t understand the thrill of being alone all the time, but my cat sure loves being an only child.

I mirrored the same sentiment, it was clear from day one. The moment my parents left me alone I was dusting every surface, sweeping and Swiffering all the floors, and establishing an intricate drawer system for my clothes.

I finally had a routine. Every morning I would actually make my bed, do my skincare and hygiene, tidy the dishes or do at least one chore, and exercise either my mind or body with a book or a workout. I felt like those YouTube gurus, and I still do! You’d think it’s the honeymoon era with my new place but I feel like it is becoming a real stable habit as natural as breathing to do chores.

Chores aren’t even chores anymore, that’s how much I love this place. I just call my loved ones while scrubbing plates and I never think about how boring it is. It’s life! I feel like I am living! Even though the cat keeps me up all night trying to rub her face on mine and play with my hair, I wake up everyday grateful and loving my environment.

I have a home. An adult home where I can be the me I always aspired to be as that teenage girl surrounded by unfolded clothes and a masterpiece of arranged K-pop posters around her room.

Now I know what you’re all wondering. Do I have posters? Uh, okay. Not yet. I have one though, and it is a grand start. It was a one-month gift from a SZA vinyl that came with the album cover poster. I’ll have to make a blog about how I do posters in my room another day.

The point is: if you are seeking change or growth in yourself, start with physical change and effort to create or find a space that uplifts you and motivates you. Break away from your old habits and beliefs and embrace new airs to find new perspectives.

When you change your environment, your environment changes you.