Welcome!

So, my dear, you’ve made it. Well, or let’s play your make-believe and pretend that you did. Either way, I’ve been spying on you–and your tears, anger, the way you grasp your fists into a scarlet ball when you’re upset–for eons! Now, let’s explore the enchanting features of this heaven.

Vied by almost all High School students, staff, and everyone in between, is the epitome of this Restroom Renaissance–The Single Stalled Bathroom! Let’s go over the features of this beautiful, seemingly safe place. Now, the first thing you’ll hear is this reassuring click of the lock as you shut the door. Perhaps this sound is amplified by the sobs and whimpers you pour with you as you tumble into this room. Perhaps it’s amplified by the pounding blood in your head from the tumultuous events of the day.

Either way, it’s the sound that marks the beginning of a long but precious interlude in your day. The walls, painted in a faded shade of blue, seem to cradle you in their soothing embrace, and the soft hum of the flickering fluorescent lights overhead pretends to set a calm atmosphere.

The Masquerade Falls

As you face the mirror, the first layer of your public facade begins to slowly crumple and crack. The grinning mask, carefully sculpted to keep up “I’m fine” slips for just a teensy moment. The true eyes, tired from the happy performance you put on outside, of being grateful for what you have, reflect nothing into this mirror but weakness. The eyes and murmurs you see in the corridors each day secretly speak of the expectations you, of course, must uphold! Perhaps you tumble to the floor and lay there, or perhaps it’s a hallucination of everything around you. 

Cruel Solitude

Now, after a few deep breath ins, and deep breath outs, the gray, lifeless tears usually shed by now. The bathroom morphs into a cocoon of solitude, a purgatory where the expectations of the world momentarily fade. Alone with your reflection, both in the glass and within, you shed the layers that wrangle your true self. The silence envelops you: for the few most precious minutes that you’ll ever get, you are free to be unapologetically yourself. It's a fleeting escape, but within these walls, you can exhale bated breath without judgment. Perhaps you climb out of your timid personality and dare to make conversation with yourself! Perhaps you start dancing with those moves you were so incredibly terrified of–as you thought that every beady little eye clawed onto you as you roamed anywhere in this universe.

However, you start to fiddle with the pale roles of fat on your stomach. Maybe you start to grab the entirety of your hair and notice how it’s not as silky and beautiful as your best friend posted on Instagram the other day.

The Fear Lingers

Yet, even in this closed-off sanctuary, fear lurks in the muted shadows of these corners. You start to notice these marble walls, splattered with smiley faces to trick you into forgetting what people actually believe of you. The fear, of course, the atmosphere! The scarlet, burning hot results that would happen if these secrets you held would somehow be poured into the ravaging stomachs of the masks around you. By now, you start to investigate parts of your body, hollowed with the lingering thought of “Is this actually what I look like? Every day? This is how all of them see me? No wonder they all despise me so much. Look at my face, I don’t even deserve to live.” or something along those papercutted lines. Then, you panic about judgment, of not meeting the invisible standards set by society, taints the air. The facade must be reconstructed, the mask and makeup reapplied, before stepping back into the world beyond the bathroom door.

The Exit

As you unlock the door, as you swing it open the world outside awaits. Remember. Let this linger in you that there is no safe place for you to plead for help–rest assured that as soon as you do, blade will strike you and you will be outcast, decorated with the mutters of scorn wherever you go. The solitude offered by the single-stalled bathroom was a temporary reprieve. But it’s not true.