Back in April during one of my many trips to Family Dollar I bought this little Marshmallow Peep-looking chick made from wire and electric blue tinsel, looking all sad and pathetic in the leftover/reject Easter section of the store. It was cute, it was only a quarter and I have a special soft spot for inanimate objects, so I had to have it. Fast forward to May 29th, the day that I arrived in Louisville, Ky. for a summer with Bulldogs in the Bluegrass. I’d just come back from an eventful trip to the local supermarket when I broke down during a failed search for my favorite powdered donuts (I’ve since stopped eating them — sorry I’m not sorry that I won’t be spending a STAGGERING $4.00 a box on them every other night, DURFEE’S), and decided to start thinking about the possibility of maybe unpacking.

I started to unzip my black brick of a suitcase, only to find small pieces of blue tinsel popping out. I pulled the chick from the luggage and put it near the window.

My roommate (L) said something to the effect of “haha what is that?” Such a doll. She probably thought I was an emotionally unstable over-packing freak with a thing for Marshmallows Peeps, some of which is true. Anyway, the night rolls on, L and I become fast friends, and as I’m putting of the last of the photo that I had brought to decorate my desk, she figured me out.

“You’re a nester.”

Just like my CHICK. Lawl.

She was right though. Even when camping, I’m never the kind of person to leave all of their stuff in a bag. Mine is the sleeping bag with the stuffed animal, water bottle, and if I was feeling really anxious, perhaps notepad and pencil. Since freshman year, I’ve dedicated the first few days of each Camp Yale almost exclusively to carefully decorating my new space, ensuring that it has a minimalist feel with just very few carefully chosen pieces that make it feel like mine. It’s one of my favorite times of year. I envision how I’ll interact with the space, sitting on my bed with my ultra soft cream-colored blanket, white oscillating fan blowing my hair, staring calmly at the quiet beach scene painting that I’ve had since freshman year, being fed chocolate strawberries.

Of course it never really happens that way, but still I rely so heavily on my room to keep me grounded, to remind me that there is life beyond the late nights and early mornings, the papers, the club meetings, the stress.

But even with something as personal as your room, it’s hard to brush all consideration for how visitors might perceive you aside. So, you clutter your bookshelf with all twenty books you skimmed for “A Formal Dialectical Interrogation into the Postcolonial Self” because you’re really self-aware and introspective like that. Then you plaster a beer poster to your wall because you like books but you also know how to have a good time — you balanced kid, you.

But it’s not about that. This place, the one where you party, panic, play and primp should be about you and the things that make you comfortable, warm, at home — even if that home is temporary and shared with a tinsel chick. Tinsel chicks make great nesters.