So...today’s an interesting day. A year ago today, I married two dear friends/ex-coworkers (I’m an ordained minister, not a polygamist). It’s the birthday of an ex I haven’t spoken to eons. This morning, I was standing about 50 feet away from a nasty accident involving a driver accidentally plowing into a parked car. (Luckily no one was hurt.) This happened right after I left my new apartment.
Oh, and it’s the first day I woke up in my new apartment.
Less than three weeks ago, I was given the boot from my old place. OK, that sounds a bit harsh. The reality is that my housemates were very cool about everything. They’re getting ready to start a family, and they’ve even scouted out bigger houses we all could live in. But since they couldn’t find anything decent, their only choice was to ask me to leave. But they were glad to give me plenty of time to find a new place. Truth be told, I couldn’t have asked for better housemates.
As luck would have it, I found a place right away, just five blocks from their place. It’s a 1-bedroom, $1050/mo. (an amazing price in Santa Barbara), month-to-month rental agreement (no long-term lease, although I can see myself living there for a long time), and it comes with lots of space and sunlight. Within a week of looking at the place, it became mine for the taking. Seems like it was meant to be.
While I’ve always wanted my own space again—it’s been almost eight years since I lived alone)—I’ve been reluctant to look for my own place. That is to say, I’ve been unforgivably lazy about it. And downright complacent. I got comfortable since I had a great deal on rent and utilities. Now, things will be a little trickier. My rent has doubled. I have to pay utilities. I have to feed myself every day.
Thank god.
Having to deal with this transition, I’ve come face-to-face with a bedroom and a garage full of my things: magazines I hoped to read; drafts of stories I promised myself I’d finish; mementos of relationships that no longer hold any sentimental value. Most of these items haven’t made it into the new place. Some have gone to Goodwill. Others got tossed in the recycling bin. Some even went straight into the trash. My apartment is a good size, and I could probably store everything I had in the old place. But I won’t. It’s my new home now. I can have guests stay when they visit. I can walk around naked. I can walk around naked when guests visit. (Ew.)I can bring dates home now. I can go on actual dates now. I WANT to go out on dates now. I haven’t felt this way in years! I can be as dirty and lazy as I want to be and scatter my books and clothes and dishes everywhere if I so choose.
But the best part is that I choose not to. I choose to make it not just my home, but a home I can be proud of. I have space for lots of shelves. I have furniture and dishes once again. I can make my home a place of order and organization, comfort and cleanliness, devoid of junk I’d do little more with than store in a box that sits in a corner indefinitely.
Sure, there are still a few frivolous things I’m holding on to. There are some books I just couldn’t rid myself of before reading them. Most of my rough drafts of the Great American Magazine Article Comparing Phrasebooks are still stashed in boxes. But now’s the time to work through all of that. Having no cable TV (and perhaps no internet, we’ll see if that’s possible to live without for a while) will give me a lot more time for languages, reading, writing, cooking...the list goes on. So far, I’ve finished a book I’ve been wanting to read for a year, and I’m getting through another one I don’t even remember when I bought it. I’ve got my Turkish language resources in one place, so I can start studying properly. There's a cabinet in my kitchen I'm using strictly for cookbooks whose spines will be cracked soon. And I’ve got a pile of old writing samples on my dining room table (“OMG! I have a dining room!” my inner voice squeals) ready to be edited and revised.
And hey! I even have a blog post up.
Granted, not a great one. A bit rushed, and somewhat contrived. It rambles on humorlessly. And if I had the time to proofread this, I’m sure I’d find typos galore. Let's face it, it's about as compelling as something John Grisham would write if he were dead. But it’s a start.
Here’s to the first of many. Blog posts, that is. And new starts.
It was quite an experience back then. Will we see another experience like that in 2012? I'm all for clean house.
Posted by: thailand real estate | January 09, 2012 at 09:24 PM
Congratulations on the new apartment! This is definitely the start of something new. I wish you all the best in your life.
Posted by: manila condo | January 27, 2012 at 01:03 AM