Although the things I've collected since I was a child are currently in Dubai, I hardly have any memories in that house. The city holds no more for me either and I can't remember the person who once used to sit on her chest of drawers looking across the sand lots to the busy Sheikh Zayed Road - pre-metrorail - where the Emirates Towers stood tallest in the skyline. I have grown so much since then yet that girl is still in me. Somewhere.
My family will be officially renting the home we have in Virginia for at least the next year. This means everything must go. While we only spent a few summers in that house and didn't really invest in fixing it up and making it truly ours yet, I have gotten used to its familiarity and it was a comfort to know that it was there even while my family themselves were so far away. Now, I'll know it's there, but being lived in by someone else. The house will be empty to me.
So, my apartment has become my home. Now, I come home to the district after weekends spent gallivanting in New York City - which will be forever magical and an odd sort of solace to me - and retracing steps that my friends have taken away from their own homes.
This summer has held a lot of firsts for me. My first trips to different cities along the eastern coast; attending my first friend's wedding; my first time spending a summer away from my family and coincidentally my first summer with a place to keep coming home to. For all the pain and confusion this summer has brought me, I am ultimately grateful for it. As I can't recognize that girl from the make-shift window sill in Dubai, it's even hard to recognize the person who packed up 615 and moved into 202 only a few months ago.
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