Monday, June 8, 2015

Room by Room (1)

Or...The Unfuckering of My Home


The Bedroom

Sometime in January of 2012, a young (well, relatively) woman, spurned once again by dating catastrophe, decided to down-size her bed from queen to twin. This will make me think twice before taking another lover, she thought. Her mistake lie not in the size of the bed she chose, but in the arrangement of the new furnishing.

She had decided to use a bookcase as a foot board. There, she could keep a lamp, light reading material, empty beer cans, etc. But, due to the bookcase being open-faced, the bed not quite reaching said bookcase, and the fact that the young(ish) woman was frequented by thrash-inducing nightmares, led only to the creation of what she came to think of as The Cavern of Lost Things. Any and all things falling into The Cavern of Lost Things became objects of which were best not thought. And so, she dismissed them without care.

Fast forward three and a half years. The still totally young woman is facing living alone for the first time in nearly 10 years. Don't confuse it, she is elated, but feels daunted by the task of soon cleaning and rearranging an entire, enormous apartment to suit her needs and wants exclusively. A task which she has only dreamed about since stepping foot inside the beautiful space 8 years ago. She unfuckered the kitchen and back porch closets of unwanted remains of her previous roommate easily and with much satisfaction. Soon she will have to do so again throughout the house but, for now, she is simply cleaning up her own messes to get a head start. Today, she tackled The Cavern of Lost Things.

It was gross. Socks from who-knows-when. Earrings upon earrings she had long since forgotten. Letters that she never meant to write, let alone send. Pictures of people she barely remembered. Empty bottles of beer and wine. Money - bonus! Page after page of incoherent rants, surely induced by booze and something innocuous said by a friend or stranger. One saltine. Phone numbers with no names. Lists of random objects (probably lost things she was trying desparately to remember while inebriated).

Almost all of it was dirty garbage which she happily swept into the bin as she thought to herself, If this is all i have lost in three and a half years, then i have lost nothing. 

When the unfuckering is complete, she will move her queen-sized bed back into her room. It's finally time to spread out.