Hope All is Well

As if being unemployed and living in a pandemic isn’t enough on its own, I decided to move to a new city and state. A month before my move I was texting with best friends about our mental health, we discussed what we were doing to combat the anxiety and depression. Like more rational humans they picked up healthy coping strategies and self-check-ins.  True to form, my way of dealing with it was picking up new major life stresses, moving into a new home and increasing my financial obligations. In my defense I figured if it got to be too much I could always just up my antidepressant dose.

 In October my boyfriend and I decided it was time to find a place together in the city after almost five years together. I hate the term “boyfriend,” because I feel like it doesn’t have the same staying power as husband or fiancé. I lived with this man in a dorm room, sleeping in an extra-long twin for three years, we’re in it for the long haul. I should also note that Rory grew up in the city so it wasn’t a huge move for him, in fact it’s only a ten-minute walk to his parent’s apartment. I am not from the middle of America either, I’m from Connecticut and have spent most of my life commuting in and out of the city. The newness and strangeness factors were minimal, but still I hadn’t lived anywhere but college and now I was getting my own space for the first time. I loved living at home with my parents, I had the basement all to myself and was very content with subterranean dwelling. I had been saving everything I could and after my 26th birthday in September, I was ready to fly the coop. I knew if I didn’t start to make a move I would put it off for another year. So, Rory and I began our search.

I didn’t realize how much I could hate looking at apartments online until I started. Luckily, we had narrowed down the neighborhood we wanted to live in which made my frustrated search more limited. After getting ghosted by Zillow realtors and exhausting my search of the neighborhood, avoiding apartments next to animal clinics and hookah bars, I scheduled a full weekend of viewings. I decided I would find my new home in that weekend, I would not use any more of my unemployed energy to set up blind apartment dates with realtors on my weekends.

During the tour of the first apartment, Joe Biden was officially announced as the new President Elect. This meant while the city exploded with joy I was stuck in an apartment with a stranger who was trying to convince me that, “one closet this deep really is enough.”  When the CNN notification binged my pocket, all three of us looked at our phones. After reading one another’s reactions we all recognized we were rooting for the same team. Politics are polarizing and I try not to discuss them with strangers, especially not this election. Not because I don’t care, but at that point there was no use in arguing with anyone who supported that monster, they weren’t changing their minds and I wasn’t changing mine. I couldn’t think of a weirder way to find out that we had a new President. After having some major awkward small talk about it, we quickly walked to the next apartment she had listed. After looking at what seemed like five of the exact same apartments which all seemed to all have mass amounts of flies living in them, we made our way to our next tour. I am a people pleaser, I will walk into a place and say it’s the best place I’ve ever seen to the realtor even if it’s a current crime scene or covered in feces. While I made niceties with the stranger who just wanted my money Rory was on hands and knees inspecting radiators and outlets. I was the face of the operation and he was the brain. We liked one of the places we saw, which really meant it didn’t have any brain matter on the walls and it wasn’t on the first floor, I knew it wasn’t the one but I just wanted the process over.

Rory and I evaluated the apartments we had just seen with realtor contestant number one in front of the next building we were scheduled to see. Realtor contestant number two was running late and so we watched the apartment’s residents trickle in and out. From what I observed in that ten minutes it seemed like everyone’s grandma lived in this building. I have never seen so many old women carrying too many groceries they shouldn’t be in one place. After about fifteen minutes a woman pulled up and confidently doubled parked her car in front of the building. The woman that exited the car looked as though she had been in one of those skydiving wind tunnels. She struggled to get her mask on and keep her sunglasses on her head while trying to get into the lock box that was strategically placed in the wall of the building while repeating, “God help me.” Her name was Melanie and she was either new to the realty game or just very bad at it. When we were finally allowed entry into the building our new friend Melanie took us on a wild goose chase throughout the building looking for the apartment she was supposed to be showing us. After taking us up and down floors, she went up to a random door that had a welcome mat outside of it, which in my mind indicated that someone did indeed live there. She stuck her key in the lock and although the door knob did not turn she continued to shove the key into the door. While trying to jimmy the lock she turned to tell us how once when she was locked out of her apartment she used a credit card to get in and in hindsight it didn’t make her feel safe. After her attempted break in did not go to plan she promptly ran away down the stairs to get her phone from her double-parked car which had the apartment number, leaving us outside the door of the apartment she had just tried to break into.  After she had made it downstairs the phantom resident opened the door, a large man emerged asking an innocent Rory and I, “Were you trying to get in here?” I quickly yelled at the man that it was a realtor and she was trying to get in, making it very clear that Rory and I were not some weird couple coming to rob him in the most conspicuous way.  “Here?”  He asked with confusion. We responded by shrugging and raising our eyebrows which I hope translated to, “We don’t know what this bitch is doing either.” The man who had every right to shoot us closed the door and my gal pal Melanie returned and thanked me for, “taking care of that.” After Melanie called her boss to find the apartment we entered what I can only describe as a deeply haunted apartment. I’m not sure if Melanie turned on the lights or not, but I do know that I found Rory in the bathroom sitting on the smallest toilet I had ever seen. After spending fifteen minutes trying to find this apartment I immediately wanted to walk out, but don’t forget I am a people pleaser. I walked around the apartment while Melanie trailed behind me. I complimented the lighting which really gave me a mental ward ambiance and the very adorable retractable folding door separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. Rory continued to give me, “it’s time to go,” eyes behind Melanie’s shoulder while I hemmed and hawed about the apartment I was actively scared of. We exited the building and Melanie told us to be sure to email her if we had any questions, when she got into her double-parked car she gunned it down the street. My only question was, who let this woman out?

Rory and I returned to his parent’s apartment feeling defeated. I was trying to convince myself and Rory that we liked one of the places in the fly building, but we both knew it was a hard case to make. We had two more tours the next day, but I wasn’t feeling abundantly optimistic. Sunday morning, I made Rory get up early to make our way to our next tour that was a ten-minute walk from his parent’s building. We were early so we sat in the park and watched an adult softball league drink beer and pee in the bushes. I loved the neighborhood, it was so quiet and normal. Babies sat in swings in the playground and dogs sniffed along the path. We met the realtor at the building and I was surprised to find a put together man who knew what he was doing. It was a prewar building with so much charm. The lobby was large with a fireplace and furniture, old maps of the neighborhood covered the walls. Who was a I? A billionaire? I was in love already. He showed us the first apartment which I adored, it had real doors and closets and zero ghosts from what I could tell. I was sold, but before we left he thought to show us another apartment down the hall. He opened the door and I walked in and knew it would be our new home. Rory investigated the radiator and the windows which each received his approval. The apartment had more than one closet and sunlight. Third floor, no flies, no scary lighting, and kitchen counter space. The building felt like a secret we weren’t supposed to know about. It was in our price range and had everything and more. I saw myself bringing in groceries and running late to work from this building. Taking a puppy into the elevator and swinging my apartment door closed with my foot. I would live here; this apartment would be ours. I would take baths in that tub and overcook chicken in that oven. I practically ran out of the building giddy and yelling at Rory about how perfect it was and how it just had to have been made for us.

We naturally gravitated up the street and onto the same bench from earlier. We looked at each other and agreed this was the place we wanted. I facetimed my Mom and told her we needed this apartment, we would never find anything better. After having the same conversation with Rory’s parents, I cancelled our next tour for that afternoon and we started our application. Fast forward through a month of stressful gathering of paperwork and funds, we signed our lease for December 1st. Moving day I recruited the most elite movers I could find. The team would consist of my Dad, brother Tommy, Rory, and his two best friends. My mother was there but I would not call her part of the moving team. She acted more as a moving liaison and supervisor which honestly, smart on her for asserting dominance and refusing to carry anything up the stairs. I unpacked while everyone else did the hard work of carrying furniture and boxes. After all the heavy stuff was moved Tommy and my Dad took the U-Haul back to Connecticut, leaving me behind in New York City. After trying to set up the WIFI and an impromptu trip to Spectrum for a new router it was time for my Mom to leave. I didn’t cry when I moved into college when she left but I cried hard this time. Even though I was only an hour away from home it wasn’t the distance that was making me sad, sad is a light description, Rory found me inconsolable and crying in the shower, but it was that this was my next stage of life. Without realizing it I had walked out of my early twenties and stepped knee deep into my late twenties where shit starts getting real. It took me so long to move out because I was doing it on my own, no parent’s money, no secret stash for emergencies, it was all on me. I used to get frustrated when I saw people moving into apartments in the city right after college, I never had the kind of family money where my parents would slyly drop two hundred dollars into my account, if anything my family kept our money under lock and key from each other. I had spent so long getting my ducks in a row and playing the long game to get the apartment I wanted, where I wanted, with no roommates, but now I was sad crying in my new shower. The realization was that I would never live full time at home again unless something went terribly wrong. My next stage of life would mean engagement, marriage, and maybe kids in the very far off future. As I cried in the shower I think I was grieving my past and everything before that very moment. Working since I was a kid to scrape together enough cash to buy a pack of cigarettes and pay my phone bill. The people that broke my heart before I found Rory who made me feel loved and safe. My friends who passed away who never got to see who they would be or end up, who I would never be able to cook dinner for in my new apartment. I was actively going through a season of my life and I happened to be aware of it. Once I cried myself out, Rory tucked me in on the couch his parents had given us and heated me up a piece of pizza. I was with the right person in the right place, I just couldn’t believe it because nothing in my life had ever been so easy.

A month into living in our new apartment I found new routines. I walk through the park always going past the playground because the camp counselor in me always wants to hear kids laughing and squealing. I walk by the Catholic school where the kids have gym class in the middle of the street on my way to the grocery store. I pet the good boys in my building and check my mailbox. This is my home. One afternoon I was laying in my bathtub when an old friend from high school messaged me. She was the first of our friends to get sent away to boarding schools and rehabs. We wouldn’t hear from her until we were out of high school, disappearing out of our town and lives only to catch up through social media. I hadn’t spoken to her in years and it was nice to hear she was happy and healthy and became the person she was supposed to be. The first message read, “Hope all is well.” I was currently taking a bubble bath in my own tub, watching real housewives on my phone, with my head on a pillow. When I was sixteen I never thought this would be a possibility for me. I wasn’t well and I honestly didn’t have the hope that I would ever be. But in that moment in the tub, I was alive, I was twenty-six, I hadn’t had a drink in a year and a half, and I was loved. I was happy. I am happy. I have a new home that is mine that no one can take from me. I burn my chicken and swing the door closed with my foot. I haven’t seen even one ghost, so I guess, all is well.