I'm going to take a step away from me battling my apartment and list here a few things that I truly love about my new home. Here we go!
(Unfortunately for me, this will probably end up being a series)
Last night was my first night at my new apartment. I got to New York Sunday afternoon and was dreading the whole ordeal. I packed my suitcase, resenting each shirt or pair of pants I folded and stuffed into it. My mom and I did a little decorating, part of which involved an attempt at turning a king & queen size duvet into a slip cover for a sofa (a work in progress, I assure you.) After my mother left, I closed the door behind her, took a deep breath, and turned around to face my fears.
It’s a beautiful night in New York City tonight. The thickness that’s been in the air for the past few weeks has subsided, but that comforting warmth of summer still wraps around you the moment you step outside. Most nights when I get out of work I practically run to the train station so that I can get home and get in bed. Tonight, though, I lingered a little. I left the office later than usual, and I walked through Rockefeller Center to get to Grand Central. Usually I avoid tourist attractions at all costs, but there was something calm and peaceful about it tonight. Maybe because it was almost 9:00 on a Tuesday night, and the only people still wandering around don’t have to travel to far to go home. I almost wanted to stay even longer, just to walk around the city and take everything in. I realized that pretty soon I’ll be living just a few blocks from work and I can linger all I want. I realized that when that day comes, I’ll probably just want to get away from New York.
I’m getting pretty close to the day where I will have no more excuses as to why I have not moved in to my apartment yet. The shelves have been cleared, the floors scrubbed, I’ve broken every last nail on my fingertips lifting boxes and washing walls. Even the thick smell of incense that hits you as soon as you unlock the front door has subsided. What was once a dark space filled with chaos and bits and pieces of memories long gone is now a bright yet serene apartment, filled with the scent of a fresh start.
Perhaps its because usually I have a set date that I’m moving out of one place and into another, and I have time to mentally prepare. It could be because I am truly terrified of what I’ve waited my whole life for, but I just don’t think that’s it. Whatever it is, I can say something inside me is just not ready to live in that apartment. I don’t think it’s the actual living there that’s getting to me either, I think its what it will mean for me.
My mind is racing with what-ifs. What if I’m not good at it? What if I never find a job? What if I don’t have enough money? What if I want to go home? What if I don’t want to? What if I just plain can’t do it? I feel like I have to grow up overnight. Everything else was just temporary and this is semi-permanent.
Time flies when you're hauling garbage from your new apartment to the side of your mom's house.
Two weeks ago I made my first trip to "the apartment." I came with 4 of my friends and my mother, armed with a granny cart full of Fantastik, Clorox, Lysol, 4 pairs of rubber gloves, sponges, buckets, pledge, etc. We split up into teams, one team tackled the bathroom and the other got started on the kitchen. You can imagine how small a kitchen and bathroom can be in an apartment in New York. It took all day. Since I am cleaning out the whole apartment and can't throw the garbage away in the basement, I've been loading it up into my mother's car and then unloading it on the side of the house.
After that first weekend, I couldn't convince any of my friends to come back. My mom and I went Saturday morning and spent 12 hours on the bedroom alone. We dusted light fixtures, scrubbed the windows, polished furniture, sorted through costume jewelry, and threw out loads and loads of useless crap (I'm convinced that when you turn 65, it is a rite of passage to begin a collection of plastic bags that are at least 10 years old). The car was stuffed to the brim with garbage bags and Sunday morning I added them to the pile collecting on the lawn. Sunday night my mom and I went back to take more garbage. We loaded up a granny cart with a few bags, and I carried three out to the street. We stopped for a moment to rest, and the cart started rolling down the street. I ran after it and we tried to collect ourselves despite the flock of people walking by staring at us in disbelief. It took us three tries to bring the garbage to the car, after many attempts at stacking it every which way and it toppling over every time. The end result was me running bags back and forth amid confused stares from passersby. My favorite was the trip where my mom carried a bag with a bright orange pool noodle popping out the front and I paraded down the street with an enormous ebony carving of African elephants and a Hoover vacuum circa 1950. Bag after bag we carried, into the steamy hours of that Sunday night. You cannot fathom how much crap an 85 year old woman can aquire in her lifetime. Some if the things are gems, just waiting to be uncovered. Unfortunately, most of it is crap. We arrived home and proceeded to add more garbage to that ever growing pile.
That night, I dreamed (or should I say nightmare-ed) of the pile of crap growing on the side of the house. Garbage at a barbeque. Garbage at work. Garbage in the rain. Garbage. Crap. More garbage, more crap.
At this point, you just have to laugh, or else the crap will kill you.
Last summer, while living in the hell hole that was "student living at a fabulous New York hotel," I wrote about visiting a cousin of mine. To refresh your memory, this cousin has been living in Manhattan since my own mother was younger than me, and yes, it is rent controlled. On Monday night, we found out that she will be giving up this apartment. It was like the loss of a piece of living history, knowing this place would now only be a family legend. My mother asked my sister and I to go to NYC this week to pick up a few of her things that we would like to keep. I pictured all the African masks coming off the walls, her jewelry boxes emptied of costume pieces bought in countries I will never see, and all her records coming to a halting stop.
