Well, we continue to move forward with the house, and now just have to wait 21 days of anxious non-being before we can get court approved and buy the fucking house.
Slowly I am letting go of the apartment. The way the fan always turns on in the bathrooms, the noise loud and abrasive, waking you in the middle of the night. The way the floor is a weird squishy hardwood, and the planks will separate and catch your socks sometimes, like the time it ripped a hole in our brand new sheets because they fell off the bed. The way our landlord writes racist comments in letters to us (okay, this is not endearing at all, but it is hilarious.). The weird driveway block (cement kitkats?) that doesn't allow us to pull all the way into our driveway and scrapes the bottom of the car if we get too close.
I guess I have to magnify all the little irritating things to huge proportions, so it feels like relief when we leave. Rather like the way you break-up with someone, or how you get over an ex.
But I am still attached. I still smile thinking of our apartment, but don't yet smile when I think of the house. The house is a stranger, or a friend that you are beginning to find attractive. It's an unknown entity. You don't know how it sounds at night, or the people it hangs around, what outfits it looks good or bad in. You haven't been privy to see it's strange and cute birthmarks, or... it's scars. Despite that weird ass phrasing, that is exactly what it feels like.
We're filming our apartment this weekend. We have one for every year we have lived here, and...well, this one is important. It's like that final family vacation before your siblings leave for college, or your parents split up, or your grandparents pas away. It's the physical representation of the way you want to remember your home.
I regretted the way I left the last place I truly lived. I didn't even spend the night in my bedroom that had been my home for ten years. I regret that. I regret not taking the time to say goodbye.
I won't let that happen to this place. To this part of my life.