I peel at the edge of one of the the seams of the burlap wallpaper. Ugh. How ugly it is. “Why won’t mom let us have girly printed wall paper like my friends?” I think. Besides the ugliness I hate its texture too. Too many times, I chafe myself at the coarse surface of the wall paper. My peeling at the edges is a silent act of protest, hoping I can blackmail my mom into a new style for our bedroom.

Underneath me in the lower bunk bed, I hear my sister mumbling something in her sleep. Sometimes I’d make fun her, starting a conversation with her. She would keep on sleeping while mumbling back at me, but always ended up getting angry because I didn’t understand her. “Nohoooo! Let me ride my bike!” she would shout. Or something else like that, remembering nothing the next morning. I’d make fun of that too.

I turn to my book that’s resting on my pillow and shine my torch light onto the page. I pull the duvet over my head so my mom doesn’t’ discover my post bedtime reading. I love reading. And reading loves me. It’s one of the three books I bring back from the library every two weeks. You can lend books for three weeks, but most of the times I return the books after a week. But reading 3 books a weeks involves post bedtime reading. A LOT of post bedtime reading. So I hide in my duvet cave and drift away into fantasy worlds. Unnoticeably, the heavy breathing of my sister has me dozing of too. As my hand loosens it grip on the torch and my head falls onto my book, I awake with a start. I turn off the torch, shove the book under my pillow and turn on my side. With my back to the ugly wallpaper, of course.

Fast forward to today. Each night, we put our children to bed in their separate bedrooms. It’s their privilege and their right, because most children have their own bedroom now. Heck, it’s almost considered negligence if you can’t offer them their own bedrooms! When my friend got pregnant with her third child, one of the few first questions were: “Where is it going to sleep? You only have three bedrooms!”

But growing up sharing a bedroom with my younger sister is one of my fondest memories. The black iron bunk bed that was handed down to us. The closet we shared, filled with the same clothes, just in a different size and color. And even the burlap wall paper that we tried to hide with New Kids on the Block (she) and Madonna (me) posters. It wasn’t stylish and it wasn’t much. But I think I would have felt lonely without my sister to share a bedroom with. That we would have a lesser firm bond than we have now. The games we played,  the secrets we shared and the comfort she gave me after having argued with my mom in our shared world, they are priceless.

Do your kids share a bedroom? For practical or for fundamental reasons? Share your thoughts! 

xoxo – Irene

Day 11 of writing 101 prompt: Size matters (in Sentences) Where did you live when you were 12 years old? The twist: pay attention to your sentence lengths and use short, medium, and long sentences as you compose your response about the home you lived in when you were twelve.