X is for X-bedroom: I have to move! Twenty-fourth of 26 posts in the April 2021 Blogging From #AtoZChallenge. Theme: “Endwell: My Early Teen Years”— adding my story to the family history mix. Please join me on the journey. 
When we first moved to our Endwell, N.Y., home in 1957, I had a big bedroom upstairs, with a small built-in closet — and my brothers shared a room opposite mine.
But within a couple of years, changes were in the wind.
My parents’ first brainstorm, in my elementary years, was to build a big clothes closet inside my bedroom — turning my floor plan from a large rectangle to an L-shape. I was beside myself over the loss of square footage — so furious I made my first and only threat to run away from home.
But it was the middle of winter, I was just a kid — and when I got outside I thought better of it (Where would I go? What would I eat? Who would take me in?). So I slunk back inside, defeated — and up went the closet.
I leave my X-bedroom
By the time I was 15, however, my two younger sisters had come along — and even I realized they needed a room of their own.
So I prepared to relinquish my X-bedroom to them and move into a little dormer room that Dad constructed — which stuck straight out our back roof, as shown above.
Smaller, yes, but with some teen essentials: a real wooden door I could slam shut and lock, plus a new half-bath Dad built in the hallway for us kids.
My tiny teen room
My tiny teen room was just big enough for a cot-sized bed (smaller than a twin), a flip down secretary-desk (which I still use) and a small chair. My dresser was built into the wall and a hall closet just outside held my hanging clothes.
My parents, who probably recalled the running away episode, left the decor up to me — and I went wild 1960s style. I chose textured mustard-gold wallpaper, a matching wicker hanging lamp, an orange ribcord bedspread and drapes, and avocado green paint for the secretary.
I also hung a fuzzy, green footprint rug on the wall, next to a big Chiquita Banana ad — and reveled in the expansive view of the back yard and willow tree through a larger window than in my old X-bedroom.
My high-school friend Marilyn recently recalled it as, “A really cool room.” But years back another Endwell girlfriend, who visited when I lived in a studio apartment, took a look around and quipped, “Well, it’s bigger than your high school bedroom.”
Either way, it was was my new private space as I entered my later teens — and I made the most of it.
Up next, Youth job at the Altamont Fair. Please leave a comment, then join me as Endwell: My Early Teen Years unfolds one letter at a time!
© 2021 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
