Leaving our apartment
The other night I sat on the floor in our apartment after finishing up a final cleaning and after getting the rest of our odds and ends. The apartment was completely empty, except for one single lamp, for the first time since it was built post WW2. The father of the current owner bought the house after he came back from the war, raised his kid on the first floor (our apartment), then his son lived there with his wife and kids for a period before buying their own house. Then we moved in.
So there I was, sitting on the floor against the wall, having a beer and thinking about the five years we spent there. Then it dawned on me: the four walls and a roof had shifted from a ?home?, to an apartment. Patti and I spent 5 years in that place. 5 important, growing, wonderful years. We moved there not married, then came home from our honeymoon to that apartment. We conceived, and brought home, Emily in that apartment. It was the first home she ever knew. We argued and played in there. We cared for Pumbaa, our dog, after we found out he had cancer, and came back to that apartment after putting him to sleep. Albeit a much emptier apartment. We had friends and relatives stay on the couch and in the spare bedroom. We hid from creditors calling us, and high-fived each other when we were debt free (well, almost debt free) in that apartment. We had countless burgers in the backyard, countless nights of sitting out there with our neighbors and friends, drinking beer and listening to the Red Sox on the radio.
We took taxis to and from there, were woken up by the crowded streets on late Friday and Saturday nights, and sat on the front porch for more nights than I can remember. We got to know our neighbors and would not have loved the areas were it not for them. Patti and I watched countless movies in the living room, had fun times cooking dinner, and walked through the threshold of the front door thousands of times.
The bathroom is tiny, you have to hold the handle for 15 seconds to get it to flush, the toilet runs and the ceiling is falling down. The wall paper is peeling, the radiators sound like someone is banging a pipe with a baseball bat, and the heat often goes out. But we will miss that place. We will miss the cement ground in the backyard, the tiny plot of dirt we call a front yard, and trying to find parking on our street. We will miss our neighbors who brought over food when we came home with Emily and who helped us out more times than we can recall.
Our old place is changing from a home to an apartment while our new place does the reverse. As we unpack, figure out the intricacies of a house that is almost 50 years old and get to know the neighborhood, we will always remember, and miss, the apartment. The house is bigger, it?s nicer, it?s ours, sure. But sometimes an old, worn t-shirt just feels better than a bright new one. At least until it gets worn in.