When I think of things changing, I think of rooms for some reason. I think it’s the fact that a room is something that stays the same, but in the end its something you have to move on from, that you eventually change it yourself. I think of all the countless rooms that have meant something to me and all the memories that come back to me.

The first time I ever realized how much someone can change a room was right after my great-grandma died when I was eleven. I remember the first weeks after her death the only thing that went away from her room was her bed. Then little by little, the more I went over to my grandparents I noticed the tiny things that kept disappearing. The miniature trinkets she kept under the window, her dresser with all her clothes, the picture of Jesus she kept over her bed, even the square table we had spent so much time over, playing a countless number of solitaire games.

I don’t want to say I got mad at my grandma for changing the room, looking back, I don’t know why I ever expected it to stay the same, but every time I go in that room now, I still feel a little sad that things have changed so much in only a few years. Its like my great-grandma was a part of lives for so many years in that room and in only a few short years you can’t find a thing of hers in there. It’s only the memories that are left now. That still hurts me sometimes, still brings tears to my eyes.

Last year we moved out of a house we had been in for almost six years. Seeing all the empty rooms at the end of moving day, that also hurt, but in a little bit of a better way. Not so many sad memories, but better ones, ones I know were what made that house so worth it. I remember first sleepovers and pool parties, I remember coming home to find the cat hiding in the couch cushions. I look back over the kitchen and remember our old Friday pizza nights. But they’re all no more.

It was seeing the empty closet where I once hid when playing hide and seek, or the room where I realized I wanted to be a writer some day. It hurt to leave these things behind, knowing that the little things I knew so well in everyday life would soon be hazy in my mind, only remembered when someone brought it up or I saw something that jogged my memory. At the same time, I knew the house we were moving to was going to be better, that it would hold new opportunities and more fun times.

There are some rooms I see that haven’t changed at all, that are exactly the same, but in being the same, they make me realize how much I have changed. Like being in the Jr. High gym for basketball games this year. In the last two and half years that room has not changed one bit. Walking in I can still recall each place I’d hang out with friends, where we’d talk, where my entire Jr. High life took place outside of the classroom.

This room makes me smile, the concept that even though this place hasn’t changed, but only I have, makes me happy for a few moments, not sad. I remember building and breaking friendships in this room, I remember first walking around with him and noticing for the first time how easy it was to talk to him. I remember sitting in our spot and telling him I liked him, and after he said it back, running to my best friend to jump up and down with her, like any thirteen-year old does when she finds out her crush likes her back.

It makes me smile even though some of those friendships have broken, some of them stretched a little far, and only some of them stronger than they were then. I don’t like change when it’s happening, but looking back, I think I’ve realized that it is a good thing in the long run. In the moment things always seem so bleak, so still, like nothing will ever be happy again, but in other ways it makes things so much better, makes you a better person. It makes me realize how much God is in control of everything that happens, and that He knows what He’s doing even when we don’t want to go along with it.