A Door We Can Close

Black Childhood, Privacy, and Learning to Be Alone By Brian Lauderdale

Growing up, I had a room with no door. There was one there, but I wasn’t allowed to close it. There it stood, wide open for the entirety of my childhood. The space was mine, but it didn’t feel entirely mine. It was always open to those who might walk by. Whether it was one of my parents or my sister who also had a door she wasn’t allowed to close. I never really questioned it. It was always a rule so I never had to consider whether or not it made sense to me. “Why do you need to close your door? What’re you doing?”; the two questions I was asked even if I left it cracked. Honestly, I wasn’t doing anything I wouldn’t do anyway. I would play videogames, watch movies, work on short stories or poems, or maybe draw at my desk. That answer didn’t provide much of a defense for me. If I wasn’t doing anything worth hiding, then there was no problem with keeping the door open as far as my parents were concerned.

I remember staying at a friend’s house one weekend in high school. The plan was to order a pizza, play some video games, maybe see if there were any parties going on. I remember sitting in his room, Halo fired up on the xbox, when he stood up and closed his door. Anxiety coursed through my veins. I guessed he didn’t know that he had just committed a cardinal sin. I asked him why he had closed the door and he said so his mom wouldn’t bother us. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK? My mind was blown. That’s not an option where I came from. I didn’t pay any “leave me alone bills”. I damn sure didn’t pay for the door to my room so I had no right to close it. It was a strange feeling. I was fully aware that just on the other side of his bedroom door was the living room where his parents were watching tv, but I felt like I was on another planet. I couldn’t believe that someone I knew got to live this way.

So this is what privacy felt like. I asked him if he closed his door often or if it was just because he had company over. He said he closed his door every day, looking at me like he wondered if my house was a wall-free open floor plan. We were just two opposite sides of the spectrum. I asked him what he did when he closed his door. He said nothing special; watched movies, played video games, worked on his homework. Everything I did without the privilege of privacy. I told him my parents don’t let me close my door and he asked why. For the first time I was embarrassed about it. I didn’t really have an answer. It was just the rule.

I was changed by the time I returned home the next day. I had seen the promise land. I saw how others lived and I wanted it for myself. I sat at the dinner table like nothing was out of the ordinary. I showered and went to my room. I sat at the edge of my bed in an anxious stupor over what I was about to do. I stared at my wide-open door. After a moment I stood up and shut it halfway. I waited. The earth didn’t fold in on itself. The sky didn’t fall. I still felt I was flying too close to the sun. I went back and opened it to where it normally rested. My mom walked by and asked me if everything was ok. I said yeah but I wanted to ask her something. She said OK and I asked if I could close my door. She looked at me with a confused face I don’t know that I’d ever seen before. She asked why. I said I didn’t know. I just wanted to be alone. This was a major red flag to my mother. I assured her that nothing was wrong with me, I just wanted some space. My own space. She glanced around my room as if to make sure it hadn’t magically become invisible to me. We sat in silent negotiation for what felt like an eternity. “Don’t lock your door.” She said and disappeared into another part of our home. Success.

I stood and closed my door slowly, unable to decide what to do next. I settled for lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling for a bit. Every noise on the other side of the door sent my senses into full alarm. I felt separated from everything else. It was surreal. A moment later, the door opened, my sister stuck her head in and asked what I was doing. I told her nothing. She asked why my door was closed and I told her for no reason. She reminded me of the trouble I could get in and I told her mom was the one who told me I could close it. She didn’t believe me. Why would she? I told her to leave and close the door behind her. An hour later my father arrived home, swung my door open, and asked if everything was ok. I decided the experiment was a failure and there was no loss in just keeping the door open from here on out.

I was 20, in my own apartment before I ever had a space I could truly call my own. And I think my choice in living arrangements has been a response to that childhood lack. I wanted something that was solely mine. A place I could hide away. Though I wasn’t hiding from anything in particular, I wonder if many of us had the same experience in their childhood homes. How long was it before you had a space you could truly call your own? Now that we have apartments and homes are we reclusive in our retreat or is it rebellion against the requirement to be seen.

To go where it’s safe. To be where we’re… us. To close the door for no reason at all besides the fact that we can.

The peace of not being accessible to everyone.

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