I have been having weird days. Everything is what I was working towards, yet it feels weird. I’m laying down in my bed watching the trees sway with slow jazz music and not a thing to worry about in that moment, and right after the moment passes.. I start feeling weird.

Weird, what a vague word, right? What even is weird? No one can visualise weird. No one has any image of what could have happened when I said the word weird. Bad? Yeah maybe she spilled some milk, cried about her ex, argued with her boss. Gloomy? Maybe she was feeling lonely in that big flat all by herself, aching to talk to her best friend. Anxious? Maybe she was overthinking her career and achievements yet again and feeling like she’s way behind.

But weird? What do you mean you’re feeling weird? Something weird in your tummy?

I think weird is not an adjective. It’s the start of a thought. It’s the start of a feeling. It’s the start of an analysis. And we will analyse why I’ve been feeling weird since the last couple of months in the next few paragraphs.

Back to feeling weird. I feel like weird has a lot of negative connotations attached to it. I use weird for the lack of a better word to describe this transformative feeling I’ve been feeling.. or maybe its a quarter life awakening. And I think it has to do with this very tiny room in South Delhi I call my own now…

Growing up, I always had to share a room with my younger sibling. I’ve written about it before, but from not having our own room and to having a room with space enough to keep all my stuff was my first big transformation. I was always someone who liked things kept in a certain way. And the stuff? The stuff needs to be exactly lined up the way I want it to. The table needs to be arranged, and it needs be layered. Layered with school textbooks, art supplies, papers, staplers.. you get the drift. The stuff helped me create, and just be. The stuff was important. But when you’re sharing a room with your sibling and other family members, it’s hard to let the order be. Chaos will emerge. Books will be on your bed. Staplers would lie on the floor. The glue bottled wouldn’t be capped. Your half finished novels would have lost their bookmarks. The stuff wouldn’t just.. be anymore.. in the space that that never really felt yours.

As a quiet child, being left with your stuff in your space was important, almost necessary, to feel sane and analyse and then create to release all your emotions. But it was always almost given to me.. and taken away instantly. Towards the end of college, when I got my single room.. that was my second big transformation. I came back to my room with my stuff.. in order. There was no chaos. My novel had my bookmark right where I left it, my pens all capped and in the holder. I came back to my layered table, ready to listen to my music and just be left alone with my space and thoughts. And I felt like for the first time since I grew up and started to know who I am, I recognised this person.

It’s so weird, right? You have always been the same, yet you never knew who you truly were? You feel like you know who you are, what you like to eat, how you like to dress, what’s your fav movie… but it still feels like there has always been a communication gap. Like you never sat with yourself, just you and you, and talked. And when you actually sit down with your stuff in your space, day in and day out, you start talking to yourself. You start creating a space for yourself where you can truly feel like you can express.. even to yourself.

When college ended, my order was turned into chaos again. I only survived on the crumbs of awareness I felt in my space before, and just extrapolated my knowledge of myself from that.. not knowing that I was going through experiences that would add to that analysis too. It always felt like I was stuck, and time was moving forward. I was stuck because I hadn’t caught up with myself to re analyse what my current self is, and there was no space to do it. Literally and metaphorically.

My family takes up a lot of space. So much so that even with a physical room to myself, it felt like they were breathing in my person space, not knowing when to stop. I was always of the thought that I dont need to make this space my own, you know? I can just escape to the next thing in my life and then when I’m stable enough… is when I’ll invest in creating the space that I want… not knowing that every minute I was existing without my stuff and space, I was miserable. I was miserable to the point that I felt like I was not even mentally present in the physical space I was taking up, but trapped in my head, unable to escape.

And then 2 months back, after moving out of yet another flat I thought would give me the space I wanted.. I moved into this tiny, tiny room in South Delhi. And then I began..

I began creating my stuff from the day I got this room. I didnt care if my room was only mine for 6 months, or 6 years. I needed my stuff. I needed my layered table. I needed my lamp and my journals and my vines and my posters. And I think this is it.. my third transformation.

I’ve come back to my space and stuff, my lamps and my posters, my plants and my books.. to just be. Day in and day out. I have been sad and happy and anxious and frustrated and gloomy in this space. Day in and day out. The stuff is exactly where it needs to be.