Home, Sweet Dirty Home
Home is where the mess is.
In thinking about a topic to write about today, a few idea nuggets sprang to mind. Nothing, though, grabbed me by the metaphorical balls.
That usually means it’s time to talk about the subject that’s most on my mind right now: me — today and tomorrow. By tomorrow, I don’t mean the far-flung future where I will be an superstar pissing on the peons as I fly overhead in my shining new hover-car. I’m talking about a future that exists a month from now. Who will I be? Where will I be? What will I be doing?
So many questions that you would think I have an answer for.
I don’t, though.
Not really.
I’m sitting in my room surrounded by boxes. I began packing my room a few months ago (it always pays to get a head start) but I only recently started consolidating the boxes along with my furniture in a pile in a corner of my room. The purpose is to ascertain the exact size of my possessions and to get an approximation of what size vehicle I will need to move. The result is a sinking sadness. I have lived in my duplex for two years.
It’s seen some exciting stories and some sad days. I’ve laughed and I’ve cried (not the manly tears that accidentally leak while pumping weights; I’m talking about big sissy sobs). The carpets are stained with proof of the fun that’s been had. Beer stains mingle with pre-leagal drinking age soda marks. A dark splotch that used to be rabbit urine is only a few feet away from bright red vomit stains. A bloody handprint marks the stairway. Tiny dart holes litter the walls. I was moving an entertainment center and I found a homework assignment from a history class I took two summers ago.
Today, while sitting amid the evidence of my past two year’s negligence in cleaning, I was embarrassed when I was interrupted from watching television by two prospective leasers led by a real estate agent. The agent was hoping to lure these young men into singing the lease to my soon to be vacant duplex. While there are currently only three guys living in the duplex (at one point, it felt like we had six people living in the pad), the place looked like it had just hosted the area homeless convention. Beer cans littered the floor. Dirty underwear hung from doorknobs. Even dirtier dishes were piled in the sink.
Home sweet, dirty home.
Despite my embarrassment at watching the real estate agent fluster about trying to explain that the duplex would be much cleaner after we moved out, I was struck with a sense of homesickness two weeks before I actually left home. Despite the hefty rent and impossible to keep clean nature of the beast, I have grown to love this duplex. Fun memories don’t grow on trees. They are as hard to come by as excuses as to why there is a knife-sized hole in the AC unit.
I don’t know where I’ll be two weeks from now, but I know it will be hard to recapture the sense of belonging that I’ve felt in my duplex. It’s the kind of feeling that can only come after a long day of work and school and nothing seems as attractive as a cold shower and a soft bed. It’s the kind of feeling that lingers in the air as four roommates sit around a living room and bullshit with each other about our sexual histories (or lack thereof). It’s the kind of feeling that you get when you realized you’ve screwed over any chance of getting back your deposit by making your house a well lived-in home.
