"Mrs Creamy Shit"
There are newish student halls of residence (for King's College) near my parents' house, and when I walk past the building, en route to the clammy Central Line tube car that will take me to work, I look up and into these little homes.
One of the windows has Christmas-style letter bunting – green and red and yellow – that spell out three words. Those words are: "M R S C R E A M Y S H I T".
Mate.
I laugh every time.
I first left home when I was 11 years old, to go to boarding school. I did not have a room to myself but I had a "corner" – a space I shared with my bunkmate, and our wooden lockers. I have always been a very neat person (my life is characterised by carefully folded clothes, decorated boxes piled just so, and tuts and sighs of exasperation when anyone messes with my systems) and I enjoy interior design. No false modesty allowed here: there is no home I have lived in that I have not improved in some small way. From polishing natural wood floors to making pretty curtains, via putting up art, I leave behind a little bit of myself (that cost me nothing of my soul, and brought me joy). I have lived in many places since that first pre-teen move: postcodes across London and Bournemouth (where I went to university); for a little while in California; in Berlin for a few months. I am excited (then tired, then resentful, then happy again) every single time I move.
The lease for my last home, a split-level flat I shared with my sister, ran out at the end of January. Between homes and amid grand life decisions, I am currently living in my parents' home, the house I did most of my growing up in. I wake up to offers of a cup of tea or a breakfast of yam and egg, to unsolicited weather updates, and prayers shouted after me as I walk out of the house. I come home to a piping-hot hot water bottle under my duvet, and I get calls from my mother about freshly prepared okra: Are you out with your friends tonight? Or are you coming home soon? It's like being in a 90s R&B music video about a straying boyfriend. Every day, I am reminded that I am unworthy of the full scope of my mother's love.
Imagine having a space away from your parents and maybe your siblings, possibly for the very first time. Now, imagine putting up those 13 letters – and in that order – and hanging it in the window of your student residence. Hanging it happily, proudly. Imagine thinking: Yes, this is a good idea. Mrs Creamy Shit! This is so great and funny. How wonderful life can be.
Sometimes I can't believe I was ever 18.