breakdowns are a possibilty, so let me back in my nest

Today I found out that I may not be allowed to move back into my room after all the stuff with Katie. Apparently, all the other girls moved out. When I emailed the residence director, the reply I got sounded like I wasn't going to get to stay. And I'm so angry, so incredibly angry and frustrated and hurt. From the beginning, we were told we'd have a choice to stay or not and I just had that choice taken away because the other girls already made their choices.

I love my room. I adore my view and I love the space I have and the little narrow staircase and the messy kitchen and the downstairs door that no one ever shuts and the way it gets so silent at night and the way the light just fills my room up in the evening if I turn out my lights and watch the city. I love everything about my room. I've got my things organized in a way that makes me happy and I know where everything is and I feel just very much at home and comfortable in the space. It's hard to be across the country from home and it's hard for me to adjust to such radically different places. But my room, my space, has been a perfect little hideaway for me. I don't want to move out, not until the end of the school year rolls around.

I understand that some people would have difficulty in this situation. After all, Katie died in the room across the hall from mine and we did share a number of common spaces. But I don't see it like that. At most, I might feel her presence around on the occasional evening, maybe sometimes I'd miss her noise. But I believe that the things that upset me the most- namely the fact of her being just so suddenly gone- will upset me no matter where I live. And being able to continue to inhabit that space will help me understand and come to terms with this awful awful thing. It may not make much sense with others but that's how I handle these kinds of things.

And I get that it may be hard or weird if I'm living in that suite on my own. But other people can move in and I shouldn't be punished because the grieving processes and the ways my suitemates deal with death are different from my own.

But really, what's upsetting me the most is the idea that at this time, the best thing to do would be to uproot and move me. That is incredibly upsetting to me. At this time, all I want to do is return to my space, hide in my room a little and have that space and quiet and peace that my room so readily provides so I can take the time to heal on my own. I can't make the things that happened un-happen by moving out. I can deal with them by facing that space we shared every day. I know that my processes are different, they're not how most people would handle the situation, but that's how I want to handle it. I want to go back. I want to find normalicy and, more than that, healing, by returning to my room and facing things as they are. That's how I handle things.

I don't want to leave my room. It's a safe space for me and it's hard for me to find another place that makes me so happy and so safe. I've spent a number of months settling into the place and making it a room I love. Now that we're all going through a rough time, my instinct is to go back. Moving isn't going to help this. At best, it'll keep me in this weird sort of on edge place.

Most of all, I want to go back to my normal life. And that means going back to the room. I've spent this past week feeling like I'm on the edge of a breakdown. I don't think I could take moving right now. I need to get back to my space, not only because I like it but because I need to be in a place that I feel safe enough to really heal in. A new and unfamiliar space won't be that. And I'll barely feel comfortable putting the same energy into it as I did for my room upstairs since it won't be long before I'm moving out anyway. It'll be a weird sort of temporary guest room feeling that will keep me feeling on edge and constantly uncomfortable.

I don't want to lose it entirely right now. I'm holding it together with string. I can't take a move right now, I don't think I could handle all of that, I just can't.

I know what I need right now. Moving is not it.