When you’re young you continuously find yourself in search of a spot to call your own, where you feel at ease and homely, and yet I had never seemed to be able to find mine until this year.
I find it peculiar that I have not only finally discovered my “spot”, but funnily enough, I’ve found more than one “spot” during my last year as a child. It makes me smile, as I finally have more than one home; coincidentally just as I am about to venture off to university.
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SPOT NUMBER 1: Spot number 1 is a quaint place. A small place. A quiet place. Just a short 10 minute walk, with earbuds in and a tote bag slung over my shoulder, kind of place: the library!
Not only is the library itself my “spot” but the trek there itself is too. The faces of employees through every store’s window: happy, empty, angry, excited. The switch of green, yellow, red lights at the wide intersection, like a river flowing between myself and Terebithia. And the step into the warm, quiet, musty building filled with books. And the books, oh the books! They give me the leverage to float, tricking my mind into believing it’s somewhere else, as someone else.
Ironically, despite taking out multiple books and movies at a time; I don’t actually read that much. I find myself gravitating towards my book if I am drained and it’s late at night but I would never sit down and read a novel in the sunshine of midday. Just the idea that I have books around me and stories that are not my own comforts me. The library, truly and utterly feels like home to me.
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SPOT NUMBER 2: Spot number 2 is a place I have discovered as of recent. Unlike the library which has been a part of my life since I was very little, spot number 2 is a new, fun, “I’m growing up and having cool experiences” kind of a place: a restaurant!
A friend of mine visited from England in September and introduced me to this foreign concept (or not so foreign as it is a Canadian concept, just one that I was not aware of until the past few months) which is the Warehouse Restaurant.
This restaurant is similar to a bar, yet all ages, and everything on the menu is $5.00 or in or in other words a jackpot. The ambience is super funky and exhilarating, with screens dashed on the walls, playing music videos of all different types of artists and genres, and flashy christmas lights hung all around, as if you’re living inside of an urban, trashy christmas tree no matter the season. The food is comfortingly good, the music is a blast and overall it is the definition of a young adult’s home. It is a spot I thrive, a spot where feel loud and open and unrestricted, and a spot where I feel like I can be a new me every time I enter.
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I adore the fact that I have two homes for two different “me’s” and I am so thrilled to have finally discovered the places I feel comfortable and I feel like me. I used to believe that I was strictly an extrovert, but as time has passed I have come to the realization that I am in fact both extroverted and introverted. I need my space and my alone time to recharge some days, and others I need as many friends around me as possible and I feel the need to have a continual babbling dialogue spilling out of my mouth. The library is a spot where I store my introverted self and the Warehouse Restaurant is the spot where I save my extroverted self for. Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene…
Kate Pope 