My workspace evolves as I do.

When I was younger, I had a solid wooden desk with three drawers on the left side and one under the space where the chair tucked under the table. It grew to be a well-loved place of hoarded objects, brimming with not only papers but also stickers, pebbles, keys, Post-its, and spare parts of various old and broken devices that were no longer in use. My childhood desk now lives under the care of my younger sister, and it will soon change to her will as it did to mine earlier. 

There was a period of time when I used tables in our study room as my own. I adored the looming hutch that served as extra storage, admiring all the nooks to fit my collected treasures. Those tables saw my love for drawing blossom, since I would sit there for hours sketching as songs from my dad’s music collection blared out of the speakers on the hand-me-down Macintosh computer.

My current desk has been an integral part of my room for maybe a little over two years now- I’m not entirely sure, since it still sometimes feels new to me. Prized and nostalgic books and CDs line the shelf at the top, held up by dog-shaped bookends. Under it, a ribbon-board of photos, quotes, and stickers is illuminated by a string of fairy lights lined with polaroids taken since last October. My eyes run over more paintings, some my own and some by dear friends from junior year art class, and they then shift to the jar of brushes next to numerous cups filled with pens and pencils. Notebooks upon notebooks line spare room, and a jar of coins sits atop a stack of books next to my blue-gray headphones. Those quarters and dimes and nickels and pennies are meant to go towards a post-senior year road trip; I don’t know how much would have collected in there by then, but I still like the thought.

This place has become a safe space for me, somewhere I can think and write and draw and think some more. It’s a place that I can escape into my headphones without staring at only the ceiling- instead, I can face the photographs from years of love and memories and experiences. That isn’t to say that I can’t stare at the ceiling if I want to, though.

My desk is my home. Of course, it’s not the last workspace I’ll ever have- I’m going to college next year, and after that who knows what’ll come?

But for now, I have this. It will always be a safe haven- whether in reality or in my memory.

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Thanks to a friend for showing me this song.