That Settles It

I have lived in my apartment for nearly five years, it’s the longest I’ve lived in any one place in my entire life.  Each year the lease comes up and I think, “This is the last year I’ll be here.”  One of those years I recall refusing to sign the lease, preferring the security a month to month arrangement would afford an on the move gypsy like me.

I’ve come to know myself as the woman content to hang my towel on a rented towel bar, never put my name on the mailbox, satisfied to leave the walls standard issue landlord white.

I do try and keep the floor swept, wipe the counters down, and make an effort to keep the bedsheets tucked in tight, it’s not that I’m a slob I’m just uninvolved. I’m a non-committal inhabitant, itching to move away anytime one place starts to feel a little too much like settling.  It’s not that I mind settling *in theory* (I fantasize about it all the time) but I haven’t really ever had the inclination to practice.

Today however, I had the inclination to paint, so I painted just one wall of my kitchen. Then I put up two shelves and hung three framed Hatch Show Prints. I really don’t understand why it took me so long to do it, I’ve been dreaming about wiping out that smugly austere landlord white for at least three of the five “why bother” years I’ve been here. It took all of three hours to accomplish.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll sit down at my kitchen table and hold a cup of coffee, or tea, or whatever my gypsy heart wants in that moment, and I’ll look at that one wall, my wall, and I’ll take a sip, maybe two, and I’ll tell myself “That settles it,” and it will, at least, for one more year.