Asset In Transition

This is how I left my room when I left for Basic - messy, unkempt, just totally un-squared away. It looked like a tornado had ripped my room apart. I knew what really happened.

When I got back a year later I wanted to rip myself apart.

It took me the whole day to square my room away, to find the right spot for everything. I even had to go down to the hardware store and buy some things - a new hanger bar, plus the supplies to attach it to the closet walls; some screws and wood and biscuits and whatnot to fix up the busted-up dresser I had put off repairing for the longest time; venetian blinds, because I wasn’t going to put up with a blanket over my window any longer; more and more and more - but I got it done. I got it done.

Dad came upstairs. He had heard me working and it woke him up. He asked me why I was doing all this. We were moving in a month. We had just been renting this place out. The dresser wasn’t even ours. It had just been there.

"Because I have to," I snapped at him. I was stripping and re-painting the window trim, so I didn’t bother looking away.

"This is wasted effort," he told me.

I didn’t respond. I had to get it done. I had to.