This is where it all started. Almost exactly four years ago. In this exact room. This is where I got the phone call. I was destined for nothingness, then I answered my phone, it was my lucky break.

I loved my life here. I wouldn’t say I was happy, but I had my things, my stuff, my people, and my moments. I had some semblance of control, I had what I loved, and most importantly, I had things to hate. Not the real hate, the fake complaining hate.

That one phone call and the preceding email brought me to tears. Finally, I can fulfill my potential; I can become someone. For over a decade, people have told me I’m destined to do great things. I fell for it. I told myself that my life’s mission was to create something beautiful. That something was never defined, but I said that I would point at that thing one day and say, “I made that beautiful thing.”

Well, it’s been four years. I’m back here in the same spot. As soon as I walked into the room, I noticed two things. The AC was on. My dad woke up at 4 am not just to pick me up from a redeye flight but also to turn on the AC before he left for the airport so I would find a cold, comfortable room when I got there. The second is that the room was spotless. My mom was here a few days ago, she cleaned it up and made the bed. I immediately started crying. Emotions swirled around —anger, disappointment, appreciation, love, nostalgia, and none took the lead; they could only grapple and exchange blows.

I went around the room, touching my things as if absorbing back whatever life I left in them, hoping to feed off them, to become me again —maybe me from four years ago, maybe another me I haven’t met yet. The me that had a dream to create something beautiful and eventually point at it.

The sticky notes were full of ideas, the scribbles were around the room, and the notebooks were full of sketches. All the projects I started, the hopes and dreams that evaporated when I left —my mind replaced them with concrete blocks, too heavy to carry, tethered to my feet.

This is where I dreamed of all the things I could do, and I did do most of them, but at a cost. This room reminds me not just of the things I gained, the new and improved me, but of all the things I lost to get there. And now I sit here, and I wonder, was it really worth it? I gave up pieces of my soul for four years, hoping to create something beautiful. Now, I’m an empty vessel, walking around with no essence. I look around at my creations, and for the life of me, I cannot see any trace of beauty.