Narrow House.

There is an orange house that sits on the edge of a beautiful boulevard and urban decay. A small neighborhood haven, decorated with wood siding and trimmed in chipping white paint.

In my younger years, we would drive along its street. I would daydream about its rooms, the floors, the counters. I would imagine the kind of life only people in a house like that could live.

The old lock sticks when you turn the key. Balancing a stack of books and a mop bucket on my hip, I open the door after minutes of juggling and jiggling the lock. If my younger self could see me now... I step foot on the uneven faux-wooden floors. The house smells of cinnamon and dust. But I'm not deterred. Sitting the books and the bucket on the small, rickety gunmetal table in the dining room, I stand in the home of my childhood dreams. I am reminded of the twinkling lights that hang from the porch, lighting up the summer nights. I think to the boy who sat on the white porch swing, strumming a guitar, humming along.

The house is quiet. No one is home to greet me, which is fine. I take the last of my things to the new room walking down the middle of the shotgun styled house. I take note of the common area that feels more like a hallway.

There isn't a lot of space here. No place for extra things or unnecessary trinkets. Freshly twenty-one, surrounded by pitiful cardboards boxes full of old things. Things that are as stretched and strained as I am from the move, from a lesson in maturity and independence.

These will be the best years of my life. These will be the days I reminisce on, my youth that I tell the generations about.

But I don't truly think about that just yet. No. Right now, I'm thinking about money. I'm thinking about how I just became an adult, just like that, overnight - with no warning, no preparation. It just happened. So let's drink to it.

I walk through the house. It's quiet. I hear a muffled television playing re-runs of a familiar show. No one has lived here that long, but cobwebs have collected in corners and dust has gathered on the surfaces of mismatched furnishings.

I'm not thinking of the future. I'm thinking of that kitchen floor. The dull tiles that have a sheen of grime. I pick up my mop bucket, let it fill with soapy water. This will be my first love note to the small house. Hands and knees sore from the cold, broken tiles, water now dirtied by a tired sponge, a gleaming white peaks through streaks of dust and dried forgotten food stains. Hope.

I don't leave the kitchen until the floor is white. Until I can sigh a breath of relief.

Nothing makes sense, but the floor is clean and that is enough right now. I think of my immigrant mother, her floor her only solace after days of miscommunications and frustration. The sound of wringing water ringing in the draft that carried through an old house. Nothing makes sense, but the floor is clean.

The hot summer day sinks into a hot summer night and I meet my roommate for the second time. She likes to hide in the quiet comfort of her room. She likes to hide in episodes of after-school specials. A friend knocks on the door with an open heart and a case of wine coolers. This will be my first taste of everyone's favorite high school drink.

Happy Birthday to me.

We go to the wrap-around porch and squeeze into the seat of the white porch swing. There are no lights yet. The evening dances on and more roommates begin to file in. The floors are dirtied in minutes.

The relief goes away and the thoughts of the future flood my head until I feel a little water-logged. Tonight, the floors are dirty and my hard work is unseen. Tonight, I spend my first night on an air mattress in the middle of a big, empty room, in a sea of boxes.

Eyes open, staring into the dark, I can't help thinking about that damned kitchen floor. But eventually, I won't think about the floor as much. Eventually, I'll think about all the times I spent coveting freedom and then cowering at the chance. Eventually, I'll mull over the cravings of familiarity to my own slavery rather than the taste of an adventure in the exodus. Eventually, I will see these days, my best days, are a chain reaction of both heart-wrenching trials and vanquishing triumphs.

People will come and people will go. Conversations of fleeting words and equally paced giggles and the sound of a porch swing will become the little, healing phrases tucked away in my pockets.

Sharing time, clothes, hopes, dreams… tying ourselves to each other. Eventually, this narrow house will become my first home, and I won't give a damn about those kitchen floors.