I started off this month with a trip home to good ole V to
the A. Because a visit is not a visit without some underlying chore, one of the
main things I was assigned to tackle was the packing up of my room. My parents
have decided that now is as good of a time as ever to up and move, which means
that eighteen years worth of memories, knick-knacks, and third grade school
projects get to be shoved in boxes and moved to a house that we’re all expected
to have some sort of connection to come Christmas time. I am admittedly the
most annoyingly emotional and sentimental person in our family, so naturally,
every day I spent purging old books and discovering where my Barbies have been
after all this time was met with a rousing session of bawling my eyes out while
sitting on the floor in my closet. I’m 22 years old, and I still had to “say
goodbye” to my room and thank it for all the good times. Tip: don’t listen to
John Mayer’s “Stop This Train” as you pull out of your driveway presumably for
the last time ever, because when he sings the “And you don’t miss a thing/til
you cry while you’re driving away in the dark” part, you WILL burst into tears
and almost side-swipe a parked car.
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After I chilled the eff out a little, I realized that I’m a
big girl now, and big girls have their own apartments. Before I left for home,
I had submitted an application for the cutest little studio in the world, and
had more or less had it guaranteed to me. This was going to time out perfectly:
they’d process my app while I was gone, I’d return, move out of my old
apartment, and move right in to my new place where I’d have two closets to sit
on the floors of. Tip: don’t trust leasing agents, because they do not operate
on the same psychological wavelength as the rest of us, and they’ll shoot your
plans straight to hell with an AK-47. My leasing lady, who we will call
Brainless, decided not to submit my app to the powers at be until two days
before I returned to the Ville, meaning that the peachy-keen timeline that I
had laid out for myself could now be used as toilet paper. Do you know what
it’s like to drive down the highway with everything you own blocking your rear
view and fending off the bags of shoes that keep attacking you from the
passenger’s seat? Do you know what it’s like to actually get used to driving
this way, because two weeks later you’re still not in your apartment? Do you
know what it’s like to feel constantly apologetic towards everyone around you
because of all of the favors you have to keep asking? Do you know what it’s
like to scream, “I can’t right now! Maybe next weekend!” at Destiny’s Child’s
“Independent Woman” when they sing, “All my women, who independent, throw them
hands up at me”? I fucking do.
So here’s where I stand: I drove away from a home that,
after Septemberish, will no longer be my home, but an empty house with some
minor water damage and excellent faux painting on the walls. I drove away from
another home, which has seen a wine-glass-throwing fight and way too many
laughs at the expense of my roommate’s Pomeranian. I’m currently staying at
someone else’s home where there is a ghost named Frosty and a two-year-old
honey-baked ham in the freezer.
My roommates and I joked about having to live
in cardboard boxes on the side of the road if we couldn’t find new apartments;
that joke isn’t funny anymore. If and when I ever move in to my new place, I
plan to just sit on the floor and either laugh hysterically or cry
uncontrollably, as is, apparently, my new shtick. Way to go, Brainless, you’ve
reduced me to a blubbering psychopath.
Tip: when staying with others, cook. A lot. No one hates
someone’s forced presence when there are brownies in the oven.
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