It is written in the stars: we were meant to be family.
I pet my concrete floor a little harder than I would my actual pets, and masterfully (and perhaps a tad violently) scrape off a big, white blob of paint residue.
I let out a maniacal chuckle.
Then stop when I realise my window is open and the neighbours are nosy – oops!
Oh well, they’ve probably also heard me belt along to Kelly Clarkson earlier:
“SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GOOOOOOOOOOOONE!”
I look around me, at the bad shape my concrete floor is in.
Yet for the first time, I’m not crying over it. I’m mad, yes (in both ways, pun intended), upset, sure, and tired from hacking away at the paint splodges left behind for me by the previous owner.
But somehow, I feel at peace.
At first, when I got the keys to my new apartment, I walked on clouds!
Look at me go, out of my parental house before my 40th, whowouldhavethoughtnotme!
Oh wow, I was so proud of myself!
And so naïve.
How could I think everyone would be equally excited? Or jumping to help?
My dad’s too old. He says he tries, but I also heard him say: “I’ve done more than enough for the older two, I’m not doing anything this time!”
Okay. So… thanks. Not!
Kelly Clarkson
“Thanks to you, now I get, I get what I want!”
My mom is a great help! No sarcasm there, that woman does what she can. Without her, I’d have been totally lost.
Same goes for boyfriend: Jay is a dear. He’s shit at anything remotely related to renovating, but a) he shows up, every time! And b) he tries.
Which is more than I can say for my two sisters.
The one stretching her AWOL-time for a first lustrum (this year is Year 4, so… hey, she’s getting there!) is out of sight.
The other one barely shows an interest.
Between you and I (and the rest of the internet if they would read this), I would never have asked her to help me out anyway. She’s an absolute nightmare with a paint brush, and I’ve seen her hack away at walls more viciously than I’m handling my floors right now.
I mean, there’s tough love and there’s just plain insanity…
But it still hurt when she came up with a feeble excuse (by texting our mom, not even me!) that exonerated her from any handy work.
After all those times of helping my sisters move into a new place. Papering their walls, painting their window sills, prepping their floors, fixing their extractor hoods (I swear that foil still haunts my dreams). What do I get?
We were meant to be family. I’m certain of it.
And what I got was experience and knowledge.
I know how to paper walls, paint window sills and…
I spot another spot and hack away at it with lightning speed.
We were meant to be family.
But right now, I’m good without 😊
(OH NO please tell me my newly bought extractor hood won’t be all foiled up! 🙈)
Elle Vampa 