I Spent the Day Scrubbing Paint off of My Floor

I spent the day scrubbing paint off of my floor.

Rainbow of acrylic streaks. Marks near the sink, on the hardwood, on the paper towel roll.

It’s been awhile since I did this. Fourteen hour hyperfocus: foam board and card stock, x-acto knives and hot glue.

This was all in the name of a Frito Lay work event. I’d been assigned to decoration. My boss asked me how long it all took, and I couldn’t bring myself to say “I was still working on it when my roommate left for her morning shift.”

I say all of that and my friends joke that I deserve some sort of compensation.

But now my room is chock full of art supplies, fully paid for. Christmas in May.

My coworkers’ special assignments are to build our website’s homepage and encourage safety processes out in the field.

Mine was to blast the Pixies and convert my apartment into a makeshift studio.

And my mind still feels colorful. I look at my new supply and want to dive into another night exchanging sleep for paint.

But my hand hurts. So here we are.

My friend Sarah told me about a year ago that it would be the two year mark that I would finally feel at home out here.

I clung onto that like a promise. 

The truth being that I didn’t think it was possible. This felt like a vacation that I’d overstayed- like my flight back was delayed to an ungodly degree and I was forced to learn a new language without the hope of a return date on the horizon. 

So I marched myself toward my last month of rent and told myself that my plane was coming back for me soon.

I think about the cat that I fostered back in 2023- the thing that sneezed green on all of my furniture and shat in my shower. 

The way it made me feel like I’d exchanged my hometown pets for a new, significantly worse downgrade.

And I worried that I was doing that on a macro level in Boston too. I’d see archetypes repeat- people and personalities that I’d known in Iowa and Ohio.

It felt like a hollow substitute. Glimpses of Tessa, Kaili, Grace, Flynn, Emmy- in characters I’d see on the street or at work.

I tried to spin it into something beautiful, the way the world feels like a kaleidoscope or room of funhouse mirrors. That even in a city where I knew nothing, I could find reflections of what I did.

But I questioned why I opted for that at all when I knew where the originals were.

My roommate, Lyndsey, celebrated her birthday a couple of weeks ago.

We rented this party trolley called “Mobsters and Lobsters.” Gangster and seafood themed. Pretty cool stuff.

We needed to cobble together a crew of about forty people to ride along. Actually a little surprising that we pulled that one off.

I dressed up like a mob wife, which felt really cool and awesome until I realized that literally no one else did that, aside from the poor misled souls that I’d invited.

I was the weird girl in the fuzzy hat for a second there. But then I was appointed Party Bus DJ, and then the hat added to my DJ flair.

The fuzzy hat also began a conversation with this crew of guys- friends of friends.

They were from Iowa too.

Somehow, Mobsters and Lobsters united the largest reunion of Iowans I’d seen since moving out here. There were seven of us. 

And there’s something so relieving about getting to say “West Des Moines” knowing that your audience knows exactly where that is. 

To say where you’re from and not be confused with Idaho.

And in my mobster attire and champagne bottle in hand, 2016 Migos blasting in the background, I heard one of them mention my funhouse mirror feeling.

Big props to the crustacean bus for leaving me feeling the most seen I ever have in Boston.

I’ll hit two years out here in July. 

And Sarah was right.

I scrub the acrylic off of the hardwood. 

It’s sunny out- I’ll need to buy a new basil plant soon.

I hop between calling Tessa and one of the new dozen of close friends I’ve made since moving. 

One of them asks me to send them the blog post I’m working on, and it feels like the kaleidoscope has thrown in a few new colors.

Lyndsey and my landlord texts us- asks us how we feel about signing on another year.

I think sticking around won’t be so bad.