the cemetery closet

a three year long reflection of college, growth, and staring head on with the ghosts of your prior selves

i.

2023

I pack up my stuff to go back to college. During the summer, my short adult life is stuffed in a closet full of artifacts that defined me as a child. Journals are filled with messy handwriting that my parents tried to perfect. Folders are stuffed with crumpled calculus worksheets. In this way, my childhood closet is a cemetery.

Two years ago, I was an epitome of all the things that once scarred me. I treated my emotional damage like I treated road rash. Even though there was gravel and blood and dirt caked into my leg, I refused the alcohol wipes because the burn would be unbearable. It was only until someone forcefully cleaned my wound that it truly began to heal.

I remember those milestones each time I step into my cemetery closet. I feel ages of me leaning against the walls, watching as I took the life they started and attempted to continue it with grace. I am awed by how much life can change in a year. I’m humbled by how much love is readily available for those willing to accept it. I’m proud of how far I have come. I am glad that I scrubbed my wounds with alcohol wipes. It prevented me from amputation.

Life is partially about the cards you’re handed. It either gives you a head start or a step back. However, the speed and distance you take are mainly based on the attitude used to fuel them. If I let all the pain of my past weigh down on me, I would spend my life on my knees.

ii.

2024

I said I buried my past behind me but it was still sticking its arm out of the grave, grasping at my ankles. A year later I realize your past is never buried, it’s never settled. Not a ghost, but a zombie that stays dormant 99% of the time until it’s activated again.

And that’s okay. I went back in my cemetery closet today after three months in San Francisco. The floor was packed with all the things from college. Three years flew by like that and now I’m a senior. I’m standing atop all the moments that have brought me to the peak of this hill. And finally, I can breathe.

But the skeletons of the past still stare at me in the cemetery closet. They remind me that they’re never truly gone. At periods this year, I began to miss the skeletons of myself and resented the bloody weapons that put them in the casket. The young, bright, naivety that I once had felt long gone, replaced by a gentle maturity and wisdom. I left core parts of me in that cemetery closet. The door called me over and over again. All I did was try to run and fight. And every time, I would get tired. Then I would sit in it, accept all that happened and walk out. Months later, I’d be back at its door.

After a valiant effort, I came to a crushing realization. To defeat the cemetery closet, it wasn’t enough to clean off all the weapons and absolve them of the weight of my blood. And it wasn’t enough to accept what happened. After all these years, I hated myself for every bad situation or feeling or treatment that I allowed. I despised my weakness and mistakes, and locked away the versions of me that allowed it all to happen. I forgave everyone but myself.

Maintaining the growth and joy that you’ve achieved is a meticulous and dedicated effort. Sometimes it involves going back to the cemetery of yourself and comfort the versions of you that were weaker and vulnerable. Because no matter how much you grow, those parts of yourself that you may resent are still parts of you, and you can’t truly love who you are until you forgive who you once were.

The cemetery closet never dies. It becomes a memorial instead. One day, you will be able to appreciate it for all the wisdom it provided you and the stories you get to tell. At least that’s what I hope.

iii.

2025

In the dawn of my last summer break, I realize this may be amongst the final times I stuff all of my belongings in my cemetery closet. I reorganize the boxes and tear down the stick-on decorations I’ve had for decades. I add new pictures to the memory wall and pack new keepsakes in my memory box. I tuck the last of my college career away in my cemetery closet.

This time, it feels entirely new. Life after self-forgiveness is quiet. Your brain no longer replays the old mistakes, so it fixates on preventing new ones. In the past month, I’ve built up my substack, revitalized my nonprofit, restarted my novel, signed my future apartment, kept in touch with friends, and enjoyed time with my family. In a weird way, I can finally understand why everything in my life has happened the way it has.

As I reflect on the story being written, I realize one thing. Everything I am now is just a reiteration of everything I once failed to be. I didn’t change, I returned. Triumphantly, I might add. It’s a satisfying end to this chapter of my youth.

But a delta is quickly arriving. It’s the first time I’m moving out of state. It’s the first time I will be leaving 99% of my belongings in my cemetery closet. Now stuffed with the raunchy college outfits I will not be packing with me to San Francisco, the closet is nearing its max capacity. It feels like I am idealistic in how much of me I can pack into this change, but I feel it — I am at the cusp of becoming entirely new. As I consider what to take and what to leave physically, I also wonder who I will become in this new phase of life. A phase arguably more messy, more catastrophic, and more defining than one’s teenage years. My twenties have barely begun, and I don’t know if I’m ready for the reckoning about to ensue.

My mother moved from her homeland at 26 with two suitcases. The ghosts of her past selves wander around another town, three continents away. I wonder if she ever thinks about them, about what she could have been if life took her on a different path.

I wonder if I’ll ever forget. The ghosts, or the zombies, or whatever I decide to call them, live on. They are here, in this cemetery closet. In the walls, in the church, in the bathrooms and the parks. They are in my college town, they will be in my post-grad city. I am leaving myself in every place, and every place is leaving itself in me. Wounded and hurt, dead and buried, my ghosts will live on. They will ask me if it all did turn out okay. They will demand an answer.

In forty years, my children will walk into my cemetery closet, horrified and intrigued that their mother existed before them. I will follow behind and remember all the things once forgotten. All the paths abandoned. All the versions of myself that never got a chance to grow old. I hope when that moment comes, I am not paralyzed with regret. I hope the convergence of past and present will be a source of comfort and relief. I hope one day, at least for one second, the ghosts in cemetery closet will finally rest.