Clean Floors White Walls

The first day I spent in my apartment I made chicken and waffles and spent most of the day alternating between pouring maple syrup on my plate and dunking the chicken in the remaining little puddles of stickiness. I lay sprawled on the floor, my computer, my plate, and me. I had no furniture — unless my bean bag counted as one — my clothes still smelled of dust, and the floor was so immaculate I kept trying to stick fallen crumbs to the pad of my fingertips. I listened to a lot of Ingrid Michaelson back then. A lot of "The Chain", and "Are We There Yet" and "So Long". Enough that when I went to sleep at night I kept humming the melodies to the point where I'd need to tell myself to just shut up and be quiet.  That thought brings memories of driving around in the car one of my friends loaned me that summer, with the horrible brakes and the non-existent sound system. I crooned the lyrics under my breath always. Somehow, they felt extremely relevant back then, with a boy I liked, and the air of new beginnings.  I'm not entirely sure when my Ingrid fad gave way to my One Republic one, I just know that my cramped little place shielded the world from my whirling dance moves, heard all of "Burning Bridges" and "Something I Need,” and even bounced them back at me in jubilee. There were nights I'm surprised the neighbors downstairs didn't come up to complain or hit the top of their ceiling with a broom. 

I keep trying to find a proper apology to the shiny laminated wood floor that was once, but is no more. It'll be a hypocritical one; I'm just not sure I even want to apologize for the spilled marinara sauce that came right after. Or all the chopped onion, all the butternut squash guts that fell to their demise in my attempt at butternut squash soup, or all the times I stomped around in my dirty shoes. My floor did good, collecting all these leftovers of a life less than perfect; gathering sympathy dirt for me on days when I brushed smidgens from my shirt to the floor, magazine stacks, dust bunnies under the futon, a fallen M&M or two. My floor knows the difference between my wild skips and my somber steps. It knows, it echoes them back to me. It knows about the day I spun around in euphoric celebration of my acceptance to Syracuse University, it also knows about the nights I came home to deafening silence; to quiet prayers, the twisting of fingers, and a whole lot of nothing. It knows my need to stand up and twirl. It understands the difference between the way I look at Chris and the way I look at Andrew. It knows about that day I came home at 6am, soaking wet and dripping all over it. It can tell you some of the best stories.

 In my apartment I became both fastened and undone. For three years, it had the sympathy to both evolve and regress with me in clear depiction of its host: a girl with too much hair, too many books, and too much chocolate. Still hung on my closet I keep the backpack full of chalk and the smelly shoes from my days at the rock-climbing wall.  There were candy wrappers overflowing the trash can, hair atop all shoes, hair ties on the bathroom corner, hair clogs on the tub, hair clumps on the trashcan. Rubber bands on the floor from that time I dropped a box full of them and never felt like picking it up. (I occasionally still step on a couple). Scars. On the windowsill from the time I ran towards it with a pan of burning burgers, on the side of the fridge speckles of god-knows-what that won’t come out, stains in my sink from when I dabbled in making face masks with turmeric, the broken toilet paper holder, nicks on the walls from my attempts at putting up random bullshit; my first photo displayed at the Octagon, my prints from my Integrated Studio Arts class, my best friends’ smiling faces. My toggle. My hat.

I talked a lot in my apartment. It became a kind of "backstage"to all my shenanigans. If there was ever any room in my life for an imaginary friend, this would’ve been it. I lived by myself. I spent some of the loneliest and most plentiful times under its shelter. It listened to me in times of hope, anxiety, and fear. There are a thousand swears lingering in its atmosphere: That time I spilled hot water on my foot, that other time I caught my little toe on the edge of my bed, studying for that statistic final, discovering a new pimple in the mirror, palm to my face over that last text message I sent. Just fuck. I practiced for the most important interviews of my life, for presentations, and meetings.  I fell in and out of crushes as well as I fell out of Insanity. I imagined myself courageous enough to ask all the important questions; I imagined at the time I had all the right answers. I remember all the days I walked out the door cloaked in the promise that when I walked back inside, things would be different, whatever those "things" were at that certain time. There was the night with all the fireworks, the night with the guitar, the night with the bikes, the night I don't remember, the night I can't forget. No matter the result of any of my undertakings, I got to come home every night. Every night. The same door I opened, the same keys I jangled. Same girl. Just slightly changed. Slightly grown. 

In a small corner of my room I still keep the same two storage bins, blue and pink, that my mom got me during freshman year to make room for all kinds of knick-knacks. They became home to all the hand-written letters anyone ever wrote me during my college years. There's the letter of recommendation my favorite boss wrote that says "Because you deserve to know how awesome you are!", the letter from of my best guy friend, the one that confesses, the post-it stuck once to my back-pack, the postcards, and all this time that once belonged to someone else, that now belongs to me. All these words that can't be taken back, all this bravery, all this care. And along with all these little things that collect dust in that small corner, I also still keep a scrapbook one of my best friends made for me in high school. I can't help but to think that this time when I turn my keys in, when I paint my walls white again, and attempt to fix the toilet paper holder…This time when I try to remove all evidence that I was here, I imagine it must feel like dismantling that scrapbook; ungluing the pictures, whiting out all the captions. For now, I'm just planning on spending that last day making some chicken and waffles.