Return to Room 5

You made it.

For Context, please read Room 5

September 2023

Last night I got the opportunity to play Innkeeper at the hotel that was my home for much of last year. Katie runs the place herself, which leaves very little in the way of downtime. So I offered to watch over the place for the evening so she could step out a little. I got to check in some guests, book a stay over the phone, and field a few questions. Let’s go ahead and put Innkeeper on the resume. Now before you go accusing me of being something along the lines of munificent, understand that I got to stay for free at the hotel last night.

For reasons that I don’t completely understand and might also be difficult to put into words, I wasn’t sure if I would ever want to stay in Room 5 again. But here’s the best I’ve got…. It’s a sacred place. It’s where I survived, where I began the process of pulling through. Where I shed more tears than I had across the totality of my life up to that point, it’s where I found semblances of hope and inspiration. So, hallowed ground indeed, and what good could possibly come from traipsing upon it?

But when I was given the opportunity to stay in either that room or any of a handful of others, I chose Room 5. I felt like I was ready. I was mostly sure that I wouldn’t be releasing a curse when I dared to cross the threshold. Or that I might get overwhelmed by the sads. It was certainly surreal, but it was more like visiting a time and a place that was part of a “me” that is now suddenly distant enough to assess with clean senses, along with a sense of empathy. Close enough to feel the gravity, but far enough away not to be pulled in by it. I tracked and found subtle imprints of mine that I had left behind, and was awakened to imprints left on me that I had not yet realized.

Strangely, I didn’t remember any of the art hanging on the walls in that room. But I sure did remember every trace of Neahkahnie Mountain and her adjoining peaks through the window. The first time I went to wash my hands in the bathroom, I was lost in thought. Just going through the motions subconsciously.

Then I looked up and saw a mirror frame that I was intimately familiar with, but was caught off-guard by the figure that now occupied its center. I had never seen that face, in this mirror. A blithely casual countenance met my gaze as I glimpsed a me that was out of place here. A man with a warm, almost forgotten but very welcomed half-grin and glimmering eyes. I smiled fully, looked at myself squarely, and said, “Oh hey, it’s you again….. You made it.”