Since I moved in I cursed this place. Despite the atrocious mess on my desk, the piles of books, cds and rubbish, the clothes heaped on the floor, this room did not feel even remotely like home. It’s still sterile, with the blank off-white walls and hideous flourescent lights. Cold and awkward.
But last night, something happened. I smoked a bowl and started to freak out that I didn’t belong in the place, that I had no connection with anything around me. So I decided to watch a dvd to distract myself. I piled all my quilt into one corner of my bed as a makeshift armchair, turned on the heater, turned off the light, and curled up watching red dwarf. By the time I was done, the place felt like home.
It occurs to me now that you can make anywhere feel like home, it just takes a bit of effort to arrange things the way you like them. There’s loads of things I could have done, like buying a longer ethernet cable and an extension cord so I could use my laptop in bed for more than a couple of hours (or with the screen on full brightness), or I could have make-shifted myself some extra shelves for all the crap I tend to accumulate. I definitely could have bought more posters, because looking at 150 odd square feet of white wall does my head in. I should have got a small lamp for beside my bed too, so I wouldn’t have to rely on the flourescents. It would have been great!
But the years nearly over now. Only a couple of weeks to go and I’ll be back in Galway, and then next year I’ll be in some new place. Hopefully it’ll be somewhere closer to my taste, but if not, at least I’ll know I can do something about it.