SWF Seeks...

Cards on the table.  I clean when anxious, and lately that anxiety has been linked to my fluctuating roommate situation.  Two years ago this June, K, a former coworker, needed a place to live "for a few weeks" until she figured out what she was going to do with her life.  Since then, she's found a great job, starting dating a sweet guy, and has generally become totally settled into quasi-urban life.  Ergo, time for a change.  Done with apartment life (ie, pouring rent into a dark pocket in the main office), K is looking to buy a house.  Looking so clearly in fact that she's planning to make an offer this week.

It's funny.  When my brother left our apartment (we shared for a few months), it really upset me.  Not because he and I were particularly close.  I love him, but I think we're both still a little fond of our shared memories of our version of sibling death match. No, it was more the little things.  He took the hammer.  The tool kit.  My nails (iron, not french-tipped).  The stuff on the walls.  He did leave me every kitchen appliance known to man (juicer, anyone?), but just the sudden upheaval, the actual removal of some of "our" stuff sent me into a tizzy. I don't like blank spaces.

So now, aside from wondering what life will be post-K, I'm also thinking about what it will be like post K's stuff.  I'll have a spare bedroom, fewer red kitchen utensils, and a distinctly lower number of things on the wall.  Oh, and I think I'll lose some fake grapes that currently hang in the kitchen (you heard me).

I also worry that she'll make an offer, it'll draw out a bit, and then she'll move right around the same time that B has to go back to law school in NC.  The weekend my brother left, I would up calling my mom no fewer than four times crying.  Once about my car. Once about not being able to hang a picture.  Once because I didn't know what "weight" nails I needed.  And once because he had indeed taken the hammer.  If K and B leave in the same week, I think I'll go on vacation.  And a heavy-duty sedative.

I know everything will be fine.  I'm almost 25, I can live on my own.  In fact, I think it'll be good to be on my own.  I need to have some time for me.  Right now, it's just hard to look at the hand I've been dealt as anything but a hand that's a few cards short of a full house.

On the other hand, I'll have the bathroom to myself.  Hellllooooo long showers.