Space and Perception

While still living with my parents, I had the pleasure of sharing a one-story house with my Mother, my Father, and my two younger brothers. Cramped is an understatement when it comes to describing my house but I grew to love it. It was warm and cozy, yet I was still able to stow away in my room if I wanted some privacy. Living in that space, I had the perception that everyone contributes something to the living area; everyone has a job whether it was taking out the trash or emptying the dishwasher. A family becomes close when they live so close to each other, but of course there are some negatives as well. Besides your own bedroom there isn’t really any other place you can get some privacy. Someone else is always in the living room watching T.V. when you want to watch or the kitchen is being used when you want to cook something. It took some maneuvering, but my family figured it out. I was living with the perception that to live well with a group of people you need to accept their flaws and quirks.

This mentality has traveled with me into my next stage in life: going to college. I am now living in an even smaller, cramped dorm room with a girl I barely know for a whole year. The dynamic has totally changed because I now have a space where there is no room for privacy everything is out in the open. I know have to mind the perception that being comfortable with myself and with her will be the only way I can live in this room happily without any complaints; I am in the process of getting to know her routine of how she lives and adapting to it. My roommate will also have to adopt this perception, from being an only child to now having to share almost everything with someone else.

Changing my living space has allowed me to create a new perception on leaving places behind as well. Packing everything you own in boxes, putting them in the car and drive over a hundred miles just unpack sounds daunting but it allowed me to shed the things I wanted to leave behind. It was sad knowing that I will never permanently move back into the home I grew up in, but now I can breathe a little easier knowing that my load is just a bit lighter then it was when I was still living at home.

Perception is key, and the space you live in is the locksmith who molds and shapes it. The space you live in can dramatically change your perception on what your standard of quality of living is, working with a group, and which traits you deal with best and when which quirks you can’t accept. We put a little bit of ourselves in these spaces through decoration and in turn we allow it to influence us on the most basic level of interaction with other humans and with yourself.