The Stubborn Residue of an Old Price Sticker on a New Coffee Mug

Dear Delyara, I spent fifteen minutes tonight trying to scrape the sticky white backing of a price tag off the bottom of a new mug I bought for the office. The paper came away easily enough, but it left behind that gray, gummy adhesive that completely refuses to budge, catching every piece of lint and dust from the tea towel until it looks completely dirty. It’s a minor, ridiculous frustration, but it made me think about how we carry the remnants of our old contexts around with us. You change your setting, you buy a new piece of life, you try to start fresh, but there is always some sticky residue of where you’ve been clinging to your base, refusing to wash clean no matter how much soap you use.