I wish I didn’t have to move them. I wish they could stay forever as a physical item reminder of your presence. I like the pale, sheer yellow curtains just the way they are. The way you helped me put them up several years ago when I first moved in. I didn’t expect this to be the cause of my biggest regret for moving. There are plenty of other mementos — gifts, letters, and the like. Yet somehow as I’m looking at these curtains, the last part of my former room, I feel like I can’t let go. This was different; a physical representation of a memory, rather than the memory itself. Emotions bleed through my body, and I feel my heart hurting again. The aching pain as I remember how you stood on the chair and hooked the curtain rods, directing me to feed the curtain loops through. The rare moments when you confidently take charge, and with your height and vantage point on the chair, I wasn’t going to protest, even though these were my windows…..
I remember how we searched the Bed, Bath, and Beyond from top to bottom for the cheapest, but functional curtain rods (“How are these all so freaking expensive and fancy?! Why isn’t anything in the city for just normal people?!”). How you convinced me ever so eloquently that I should go for the sheer, although pale yellow, so that the sunlight can come through and be even more yellow, bringing my favorite color into the room. You also obviously pointed out that these curtains would be lighter as well, and probably not break the flimsy rod we settled on, since that was the only one I was willing to pay for. I sometimes had choice-paralysis (dark yellow? bright yellow? extra $15?), and you got impatient.
How we were so giddy with excitement when we, as two very non-mechanics-non-household-knowledgeable-but-adamant-we-don’t-need-no-man girls, came up with a plan for building a contraption to form a room divider and create the flex, without breaking any building policies. We spent the entire afternoon checking out the various home goods stores along 18th-23rd Streets. We daydreamed away in the lights sections, talking about what excessive sparkly chandeliers we’d pick for our future homes. We took multiple trips to the hardware sections, looking for some long, sturdy screws we judged worthy of screwing straight through bookshelf wood that wasn’t perforated. It was also amazingly coincidental that you still had the electric drill that I had borrowed (for reasons I will never remember now) from a college friend (and never returned despite several attempts) and left with you when I moved overseas. Being somewhat artistic, we both pictured these semi-U shaped metal pieces that should just balance uneven weight and hold down a shower curtain rod screwed on top of a bookshelf. No idea whether this existed or what it’d be called or how to explain to anyone else, but together, we found them in a dark corner in the basement of Home Depot.
You loved color schemes and matching interior styles. It was always with exasperated teasing when we shared a dorm, that you tolerated my pink rug, turquoise bedsheets, brightly colored patch quilt, and orange or purple towels. The finished product we designed had a fabric grey and yellow patterned shower curtain attached to the top of a bookshelf, forming a very functional curtain “door” entryway to my room. This curtain door matched the yellow window curtains within the room, and despite myself, I was very pleased that the color coordination passed your approval.
In the end, it was my new roommate, who, in a kind gesture, unbeknownst of my nostalgic reluctance, took down the curtains and placed them outside my door. I wasn’t ready for that brutal destruction of another memory, but I guess it was for the better because otherwise, I probably would never have had the courage to take those curtains down.
