Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen… ah, crap. It’s 2010. Once again, your nine-year-old self has lost track of how many glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling you've counted in a bleak attempt to fall asleep. Skip to 2022. Your twenty-one-year-old self still counts the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. This time around, most of the stars have fallen off. Your earphones are blaring Royals by Lorde, and you relive the peaceful days of being twelve.

For many of us, the four walls that we grew up within stretch beyond our sleeping quarters. Our bedrooms serve as the only sanctuary we have; a peaceful oasis away from hovering parents and all the world’s troubles. It's no surprise then that there is a nexus between exploring our identity and plastering the walls of our rooms with all sorts of memorabilia. The possibilities are endless, from concert tickets to printouts of posters we can't afford.

Bedrooms are often a physical manifestation of our identity: who are our favourite artists? What are the dreams we are hesitant to share with others but still wish to display in a discreet corner in our rooms? It might be a guitar in the corner of a room; it could be artwork propped up on a shelf.

Remember the DIY bedroom decor(ation) videos that took over YouTube in the early 2010s? Those videos facilitated the plunge into creative freedom for many young girls. With the decoration ideas being easy to replicate, they were a springboard to an ideal space to unwind and dream of better days. And it was understandable why. Such videos usually featured oversaturated montages of preppy Youtubers in Brandy Melville crop tops, decorating mason jars and making drawer organisers from cereal boxes. If you were anything like wide-eyed thirteen-year-old me, beauty and lifestyle Youtuber Bethany Mota might bring back vivid memories.

As the content of lifestyle vlogs continues to change rapidly, the desire to wear our hearts in our bedrooms remains. Our obsession with decorating our bedrooms stays long after the days of spray painting drawers neon pink. This obsession has remained full-blown on TikTok, where perfectly edited shots of desk set-ups, collages and ivy garlands draped over shelves are synchronised to different audios encapsulating specific moods. It has become easier than ever to fall into a rabbit hole of collecting inspiration for our Perfect Bedroom. The universal appeal behind pouring our hearts into decorating our bedrooms remains the same. It’s less about the cream bedside table but what that shade of cream suggests about us.

Evolving tastes in bedroom decor subtly hint at us growing up with life-sized posters of boy bands, and cartoons make way for polaroids of our closest friends. The bedroom is a one-stop-shop, a museum celebrating our proudest achievements, and a cemetery mourning the things we used to hold dearly but have forgotten. The bedroom possesses a unique way of documenting our life. Loose paper filled with descriptions of your work experience might have formed your first resume.

Personally, my room is not only my safe space but an exhibition of me, of my life. The fluffy pink rug from IKEA demands attention when you first enter my room. I often watch with anticipation when my friends take in my room for the first time. Do you see the gallery of film photos and prints that I spent hours curating?, I think. Did you spot the copy of my article about internalised misogyny? I actually really like writing; I just don’t talk about it. However, my efforts to create an expressive bedroom do not negate its ability to act as a space for healing and comfort.

What happens when we lose sight of what our bedroom should function as? When what was originally an outlet for self-expression becomes an attempt at a flawless curation of our identity, we risk our personal space morphing into a cold showroom. A pleasing bedroom to the eye is useless if it fails to bring us solace. Beneath the funky throw cushions, away from the band posters, should lie one thing: a space that soothes our weary souls at the end of long days.