My grandparents’ house has always been, and still is, my greatest place of comfort. Now it is a mere memory, one that I will never get to experience in reality again, and there are days when I feel crippled with grief because of that fact. Today was one of those days. I was standing in the shower, letting the hot water stream over my limbs – I had just gotten back from the gym and was feeling my muscles loosen up pleasantly – when I felt, for a moment, as if I were standing in the shower-stall at my grandparents’ place. They had two bathrooms, but the showers in each were identical. The water stream wasn’t very hard, but there was always hot water, no matter what. Incredibly, the same is true of my dorm.

As I stood there, I let my mind flow back through time and imagined what it would be like if I were transported back into one of my memories. I saw myself, younger, stepping out of the shower and wrapping myself up in one of the fluffy towels that had monograms stitched into them. I would then get dressed while the heater blasted loudly onto me and helped me dry quickly. I’d get a shiver when I came out of the bathroom, because the house was always air-conditioned. I would still have a hair towel resting over my shoulders so that my long hair wouldn’t get my shirt wet. I’d walk through the rooms (in this fantasy, everyone was out doing something) and find wherever I’d left my book. I’d make myself two slices of toast and spread peanut-butter thickly on them, and eat them fast while the peanut-butter was still melting into the bread. I’d then maybe take a piece of Entenmann’s chocolate fudge cake and eat it slowly. All this, you understand, while reading one of the books I’d recently purchased at Barnes & Noble.

I’d take the book into my bedroom and read, with the birds making noise outside. I might let myself fall asleep, wake up and read, fall asleep again. I would wake up to find my mother and my aunt sitting outside, by the pool, smoking and watching the sunset as they talked of everything. I’d settle next to them, maybe with a cup of hot-chocolate in the old sippy-cup that I always drank out of there, and let their words wash over me. Once in a while, I might say something clever and make them laugh.

We might take a walk down the street to see the twinkling lights of the city. Or we might be going out to dinner with my great-uncle and his family. Or perhaps we would simply stay in, play word-games or watch a film. Maybe they would do something else while I would go watch episodes of Roseanne on Nick@Nite.

I opened my eyes. I was at college, in the shower, with a limp yellow curtain instead of a glass-door beside me. I am twenty-one and have gone through five cycles of mourning – perhaps six, since I considered the sale of the house that my imagination took me to as a death in its own right. I am confused, obsessive, anxious and often depressed. These are facts that I cannot alter.

But – and this is an important “but” – I have the comfort of knowing that I will always hold memories sacredly, and will never wish to ignore the past. After all, the past can help the present feel a little bit better. As I smoothed my wet hair back and shut the water off in the shower, I felt a longing open up a hole within me, but it also exuded warmth that has kept my heart thumping all day long.