No Room; A Personal Reflection on Space, Sharing and Privacy

By Róise Curran

Illustration by Alexandra Ohrim

Growing up, my family home was small. A two bedroom cottage between five people, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room meant that for me, there was nowhere to go when I needed my own company. I shared a bedroom with my two younger sisters for a long time, dividing the small floorspace into sections using model train tracks and bits of Lego whenever I needed to be alone, but I never was. No matter how many walls I built.

There were moments, during my teen years, when I felt like I needed to run away. I’m sure many people can relate. I wanted to pack a bag of clothes and hop on the bus, live a life untethered to the suffocating reality of sharing everything. I craved nothing more than to escape it all at times. Luckily, I stayed, and things did get better, and I began to appreciate my sisters more as I got older.

 Sometimes, sharing was part of the joy of it. I used to sit on the floor of our bedroom braiding our Monster High Dolls hair using loom bands and beads to secure their plaits in place, then handing each one to my sister to dress them up. I remember huddling around my Nintendo DSi, trying to complete the last level in Mario, my sisters cheering me on before we swapped and gave the next in line a go. My sisters mean the world to me. Especially now, since I moved away from home.

 I moved out when I was just about nineteen. I had my own room for two years and a half at that point. My father had built an extension onto the house so we had the space for an extra bedroom and I used my oldest child privilege to snatch it up. Those two and a half years were some of the most peaceful years of my life so far. But my walls were still thin, and I was still very aware that I could hear and be heard.

 I moved into Galway City with my boyfriend. I remember the first few months as being the most magical few months of our whole relationship. I was sharing again, and with the person I loved most in the world. As an adult, having grown up like this, sharing came pretty naturally. Privacy, and my own space however, felt foreign, and frightening. I remember those first six months, I wanted to attach myself to his side and never let go. I felt like a bother but the idea of spending time by myself, without the sound of another person to ease my loneliness, made me frightened to my core. I still feel discomfort at the thought from time to time and I have to call my mam to remind myself that I have not been left alone forever.

I often compare myself during that period of adjustment to a puppy; howling and crying for my friend to come back.

 Privacy is different to loneliness. I'm good at sharing physical things, like my space or belongings, but my internal world has always been held very close to my chest. I had no room to think about how I felt for a very long time. Sometimes I look back on the poetry I wrote back when I shared everything. I never wrote about my own thoughts directly, but I can see snippets of my mind in the comparisons I drew to the trivial day-to-day images I love so much.

 I haven't written a poem like that in a while. I don't need to. By having the solitude and the ability to breathe in it, I have thought more about my life now than I ever have.

 Writing this has felt like I've uncovered a box of photos from ten years ago. A vulnerable and surgical opening of my inner workings. I have decided to exclude a lot of my findings to maintain that privacy I value so much. I am choosing not to share everything I have. I think it's healthy, and important.

 I see a lot of the phrase ‘over-sharing’ online. The concept is simultaneously strange and relatable. I can compare it to letting a friend borrow a pen, then handing them your whole pencil case. A bearing of your heart, born out of the lack of a listening ear. An attempt at a connection, the universal desire to be understood.

 My lips seal shut at the idea of sharing anything with the world. I've had my Instagram for seven years and have only two posts on my main account. What the world sees of me is selective and curated, for better or for worse. I admire, in a way, the openness of others. I envy the rigorous documentation they've done over the years, and the memories they can prove happened. These people have a photo album in their pocket of everything worth capturing. I do keep a Polaroid of my friends in my clear plastic phone case, all that I'm willing to share.

 My younger sister is one of those people, a documentarian. It could be that she has adapted to her time better than I have (she's seventeen) or it could be that she's just had more space at that time where space is important. She has her own room now that I'm not living with my family anymore. She has always been more open than me though, able to talk to our parents about her day at school, or what she's been up to with her friends. Confident, I'd say, in herself.

My youngest sister is a bit like both of us, a healthy mix of me and my middle sister. She's thirteen soon, and is forming her identity in decorating her room how she likes it and, after she finishes her homework, having the space to practice her hobbies and skills.

 Looking at them both growing up, I think of myself at that age and have to remind myself to love my inner child, and teenager, without judgment or jealousy. My boyfriend had so much space growing up. I used to resent that in a way. How could he have all this room when I had so little? The injustice of it all. Space is valuable. People pay good money for just one room.

 I think we're both happier now, sharing our space while having the ability to breathe in it as well. We recently found an apartment we could both afford. It's working out a lot better than sharing one room in a house with five others.

 At the end of the day, this is not a sob story. I am lucky, and very grateful for the space I had, what my sisters have and what I have now. I am learning more about myself everyday, and learning to love what I discover as well. Yes, my relationship with sharing and privacy has been strained, but it is part of me and my mentality, whether I like it or not. I think I will choose to like it.

 But, I ask you to be grateful for what you have as well. Don't take your space for granted. People pay good money for just one room.