The Apartment

It was February and smack dab in the middle of a Michigan winter. I needed to be on my own and could only feel this sense of excitement and fear intertwined inside of me. I signed up for an apartment, and without really having anything, I decided to move in.

My friend had loaned me an air mattress. I was so grateful to have something. I didn’t have a television or radio. Just a big empty apartment filled with quiet. The first couple of days were strange. I have to admit when you have been a wife and mother for 20-years plus; you are not used to slow-paced days and quiet rooms.

It was a two-bedroom apartment and felt just the right size. Besides, it was in a good location and affordable. The sliding glass door leads to a beaten up patio with a flowerbed to the side. It would work just fine for me.

I kept thinking that it had been colder in the apartment than it should be. I never did call the office. It wasn’t until the summer that I had realized the furnace was not working at all. Who knew? Not me, I had always had someone to take care of those things for me. My first time being on my own and having to take sole responsibility for myself.

I don’t know how I made it through those days, but it seems like a blur now. I often wonder if human beings remember things either better or worse than the reality of the experience and never spot-on. I think I do that. I think that I look back on my life and find myself wondering if my memory had been what I wanted it to be instead of what it was.

I stayed in the apartment for three years before I decided to move again. It was no easy decision. Do I leave normalcy to chase something better that I felt I longed for or I stay comfortable? My 40’s have been a time of growth because I decided to leave the comfort zone. My best friend told me that I had allowed dysfunction to become my idea of normal. It hurt because it was true.

I guess when you are in the moment, you don’t see how truly messed up some dynamics are. I am still in awe of how truly messed up my relationships were and that I allowed them to be. While it is no excuse, I couldn’t bring myself to love myself or anyone else because my depression had held me captive. I wonder how many people are out there unhappy or in abusive relationships but are afraid to leave for fear of change? Mind-blowing that it was once me.

I looked around the apartment thinking there is no way I allowed myself to collect all these clothes. For over a year, I walked around with a couple of outfits in a suitcase, how silly of me to think this was somehow healthy. Looking around, I knew I needed to downsize quite a bit.

Packing up and making piles for donations, I felt focused but don’t know if I was thinking about anything. I do that often. People have commented on my immediate reaction to clean when I am feeling stressed. Packing up dishes, clothes, books, penguin and Wonder Woman memorabilia. When did I become independent enough to afford anything? The thought of not being told what I can buy or what I can like made me chuckle. It had been a long time coming, and it felt like personal freedom. I stayed suppressed for so long; I realized at that moment that I had been compulsively buying what I had always wanted, not needed but desired. I would need to change those compulsions.

The apartment had been a safe-haven for me these last three years. I have always felt comfortable here. Maybe it was because you couldn’t reach my door from the outside, the main entrance was under lock and key. I just felt safe. At home. One of my girlfriends, bless her heart, she would look around all the time. You could tell she thought it wasn’t good enough but never said anything. I don’t mind. To me, this apartment was my first step to independence. The first home that I was allowed to decorate the way I wanted invite whomever I wished over and cook any damn way I wanted. It was freeing, refreshing and lively.

On the final day, I stood in the empty apartment and thought how much had changed in a relatively short time and here I am, again, in this empty apartment. This moment is bittersweet. I’m ready to open the next chapter.