My Own Room 19, Memory Palace, and Room Away
3 main concepts (and then I’ll tie them all together):
Memory Palace —> I first learned about this technique years ago as I wanted to find ways to study better. Basically, with this memory palace technique, you imagine a real or fake room in your mind, and then you remember loads of information by associating each piece or chunk of information with an object in the room. To me, this is like Korea — I’ve saved a mental space in my head and heart that I don’t want to explore fully yet, but every time I take a step back in this room, there’s a memory kept hidden in some corner of this room, whether it’s deeply hidden or lying in plain sight.
To Room 19 —> I first learned about this book from watching the K-drama “Because This is My First Life,” in which two strangers got married to save on rent. In the book, it talks about a frustrated housewife who protects her downtime by keeping a “hidden room” in the house, but when her husband finds out, she lies and says it’s an affair. To me, I interpreted this as being a safe space where one can re-discover and re-connect with themselves — time away from societal structures such as marriage and the necessary rebuilding of a headspace for yourself. Nowadays, I find my own "Room 19” being my house in London, where I can really carve the space and time necessary to be myself fully and re-connect with my inner dialogue.
Dreams of Utopia —> Sometimes I ponder about how peaceful it may be if only I had a room to myself, all white and nothing inside, but away from the world.
What’s this to say?
Everyone needs their own Room 19 — their own space to explore past memories, process their emotions, and sort through their thoughts. Whether you’re going through a breakup, an exam season, or a tumultuous time in life, make sure you find and go back to your own Room 19.
Perhaps, like me, you have several rooms inside your Room 19. Some rooms, like my mental housing space for Korea, might not be opened for a while as the door is either locked or you fear how the room might have changed. But other rooms, like your childhood memories, might not have anything at all and be pitch black waiting for you to colour in your memory gaps.
This is why, whenever someone asks me where my home is, I say it is within myself. When I’ve built this mental space — this safe space I can crawl back to — it results in a sense of being protected wherever I go, whether it’s Korea, Canada, or somewhere else.
To others, I may give the impression that my palace is all open doors with nothing kept locked or wrapped, but to me, my palace is less than half full. When I ask others deep questions, it helps them unlock some of the undiscovered rooms in their palace, but I can’t even begin to discover my own rooms until someone or myself asks the right questions (that have never been asked before).
I have deep friendships and have had intimate relationships. However, no one will truly get to know my entire palace. After all, how could they, when I don’t even know my whole palace? This is why, perhaps, the journey and purpose of life is to build — and re-build — the palace…until we can die in a place of peace.