The Current - The Rivers School

I walk through the heavy metal doors of my condo apartment for the first time in three years. I immediately overflow with memories of my childhood, and while I head through the next set
of doors to take the elevator, I think about how this place hasn’t changed at all over the years. It is November 19, 2009, and the same pink and blue abstract paintings that fill the building remind me of
earlier years. I enter the elevator and search for the button numbered 4. It takes me a few seconds to find it, and I think it’s odd that I can’t remember where that button is, even after pressing it every day
for eleven years. The light around the button turns red, and I’m taken back to the number of times I’ve seen that button light up.
I remember being four, coming home after playing at the playground with my grandmother. I had just met a girl from my condo, Carol, who would later become one of my closest friends.
We had played together all afternoon, and I was upset when I had to go back home for dinner. I remember being ten and getting home really late on a summer night after endless games of “manhunt”
throughout our condo. The kids filled that condo with life, screaming and running all night long, always getting yelled at by the staff.
The elevator reaches the fourth floor and I open the door to my apartment. I look around the apartment, searching for changes in what I remember this place to be like. The dull brown
wooden furniture is the same, the decoration of Chinese paintings with animals and incomprehensible Chinese characters is the same, the statue of the Buddha is in the same altar it has always been in
and everything else seems in place, with the exception that the apartment has a different feel to the one I am accustomed to. It seems empty and way too clean and organized for it to be the apartment
I spent the first eleven years of my life in.
Everything looks different, yet the same. I notice the flowery detail of the white curtains and the white stripes of the beige sofa for what seems like the first time. I reminisce about all the times
around the glass dining room table, the many Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. I think about the times I quietly walked into my bedroom, being afraid of waking up my older sister, Helena, after I
had just stayed up all night chatting online with my friends, so that she would not wake up and get into another fight with me. There is a strange feel to the apartment, and yet I know this is exactly where
I need to be: someplace in this condo, living a hectic, yet perfect life.
Later that day I go downstairs and meet up with my friends, who also live in this condo. They are the same three friends I’ve known since I was seven. The joy I feel when I see their faces after
being separated for so long is inexplicable. I have never realized how much I missed them until now, when we are reunited. We walk through the condo, passing by the playground with the slide we played
on, the bright pink color of the slide seeming so familiar even after all these years. Yet the slide looks worn out; the plastic material is no longer shiny against the warm sun on this spring day, but dirty
and old. It is not as big and adventurous as it used to look, but small and fragile. We pass by the all purpose court where we spent so much time playing soccer, where I got hit in the face playing softball,
where I learned how to play volleyball, where I first jumped rope, where I fell and scraped my knees so many times, and then got right back up to keep on having a good time with my friends.
Right across from the court is the game room. My thoughts immediately fly over to my last New Year’s celebration spent in Brazil. On the first day of 2006, after the usual family celebration,
the four of us spent New Year’s in this very room, talking and watching Project Runway all night. The game room looks different; the couch is different from the one I remember, and the TV is now a flat
screen, in contrast to the old silver Toshiba TV we spent hours in front of. All the thoughts about that room make me smile.
We continue walking around our condo building until we reach the pool. I have been waiting to see this pool again
because of all the memories it brings me. The pool is unusually empty for a spring afternoon; there are a few kids playing in the
kiddie pool, but the bigger pool is completely empty. The water is calm and clean, and I can see the end of the pool. It looks a
lot shallower than I recall, making me realize how much I have grown. Then the memories really hit me hard. I reminisce about
using a floatie in order to not drown when I was just seven and could not swim. When my sister and I were not on bad terms, she
would bring me to this pool every day in the summer and help me learn how to swim. Then I think about all the races across the
pool that we had, and I smile at the thought of a group of twenty teenagers waiting for the rain to stop on a summer afternoon
so that we could all jump in the pool and feel the warmth of the water against our skins. Finally, my thoughts go back to just
three years earlier, when the last time I was in this pool was my very last day in Brazil, and all four of us had jumped into the water
with all our clothes on.
I look over at my friends, and I know they are thinking about the same thing. They look different; they are taller,
their clothes and styles are a lot more mature, and their physical features look older and different. Yet when I look in their eyes
I still see the eleven-year old us. I see the earlier version of ourselves, and how strong our friendship was even though we were
so young and innocent. Then I shout, “let’s jump in!”
And so we do. I run into the pool and feel the cool water against my skin as I slowly reach the bottom of the pool
and come right back up. While I am underwater, I hear more bodies touching the surface of the water and I know all my friends
have joined me. The feeling of my jeans and shirt pulling me down feels weird at first, but I quickly get over it and embrace the
moment. I know this is exactly where I want to be, and this is exactly what I had waited three years for. So much time has passed,
and so many things have changed about our lives: we are older, and we have been exposed to the cruelty and hardships of the
world. We know things are not perfect. Yet at this very moment, I know our innocent selves are back and the all the worries are
erased from our minds, even if only for these ten minutes in this pool. I am at peace, and I know that this bliss does not come
very often. So I close my eyes, hold my breath, and go for another swim around the pool, with a huge smile on my face and a
peace in my soul and mind that I have not felt for three years.
Lizzy Southwell // Light Dance
Bruna Lee // This is where I belong
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