I cleaned my room this weekend. I picked up all the things, did my laundry, made my bed, cleaned the windows, the dressers, the mirrors. I tossed and sorted and rearranged. And I came down to emptying my junk drawer. It was full of pens, makeup, art supplies, medicine, and a slew of matches, lightbulbs, bandaids, and what have you.
These things no longer had a place in my room. I needed this drawer for bags and belts. The drawer real estate was too valuable.
I rummaged through the kitchen and bathroom looking for a cup for the pens or a pouch for the makeup. I found nothing suitable. I could put the art supplies in Erin’s general art bin under the main desk. I could put the matches and lightbulbs under the sink in the toolbox. I could put my favorite art pens in the cup of pens on the living room desk. I could. But I didn’t want to.
For years I’ve owned nothing more than dresses, art supplies, and a cat. Keeping my possessions few was like having a plane ticket in my pocket. I knew it was only one swipe around the apartment and I could be outta dodge faster than you could cook an omelette. But where was I going? I found somewhere I was comfortable calling home. I found a place I liked to keep clean. I found a place I didn’t want to leave. And in a swell of love and commitment I’d never felt before, I made that apartment my home.
Gluesticks in the art bin! Lighters and matchbooks in the toolbox! Makeup in the mirror cabinets in the bathroom! I was a madwoman tacking momentos on the fridge, photos on the walls, and scattering knick-knacks over the counters. I was grinning ear-to-ear. My apartment had proposed and in the dizzy hesitation of wanting to decline, I had passed out into a rabbit hole of yes. I lived here!
But there remained one obstacle: my art pens. Pastels, variations of grays, hot pinks, lilac, cerulean, the perfect shade of grass. These marvels didn’t belong in a pen cup. What would become of them? Would Erin write her grocery list with Fireworks Orange? Would Amy scrawl an angry rent check with Gypsy Red? Or.. or worse. Would one of them haphazardly toss a pen into their purse, taking it out into the world only to end up in the fold of a pleather bound bill envelope at a Chili’s in Indiana?
I stared at the pen cup. I gripped the pens tighter. The pen cup full of St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital pens, United Airlines pens, Bic pens, inkless pens, even a mechanical pencil, eraser long gone. Lost soldiers who belonged to no one. Up for grabs and unwanted. Used only in necessity, never in love. I looked at my pens. Then at the community pen cup. My pens… community pen cup.
It was at this moment that I realized what was really happening. I was hesitating to put my pens in the pen cup because it meant I really lived there. It meant it would take me longer than breakfast preparation to sort my things from theirs. It meant I trusted them and shared with them and in all actuality, was one of them. And that my pens wouldn’t end up at a Chili’s because these people I trusted, lived with, and called my friends would treat these pens the same way I did. They’d pick one out because of the color. They’d marvel at how the ink goes over the paper. They’d write every single grocery list and rent check and message with these pens because these pens were awesome. And one day they’d exclaim, “where did all these awesome pens come from?” and I’d look up from my book and say, “oh, they’re mine. You’re welcome to use them.” Because I live here and I’m happy and I’m not going anywhere.
