![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Plural of Apartmentocalypse
May. 3rd, 2010 11:23 amIf things would happen one at a time, I'd be much better able to cope with their existence. A little advanced notice never hurts, either. This weekend two things that were both epochal in their own way happened: my grandfather passed away, which I'm not going to blog about, and I shut the door on the apartment I've lived in for much of the past nine years with my now former roommate of much of the past ten years. It's amazing what two and a half people (there was another person living there with us some of the time) can accumulate in ten years, and how much work it can be, mentally and physically, to go through it all and figure out what to do with it.
That our life together had been trending towards dysfunctional in many ways didn't help. Even after a few previous attempts at reducing unneeded, unwanted, and unused things. the place still tended towards overcrowded and overcluttered. I'd looked at the move (which actually took place back at the start of April) as a chance to shed a lot of the unnecessary encumberance from my life, and while I did accomplish that, at the end I kept more stuff than I'd expected... sometimes it's easier to just hold onto things then it is to sit down and figure out what you really need and what's going to do you any good. That is in many ways--or has been so far--the story of my adult life.
My new living space is now a bit cramped and cluttered, with boxes and improvised containers. As I unpack them I'm going to continue the process of simplifying my possessions, keeping only what fits... both my life and my living situation. We found so many things that had been packed away for 9-10 years "in case we needed it" or "until we found a place for it"...
Anyway, this was the same apartment that gave us so much trouble two Christmases ago... the one where it took more than half a year for the bathtub to be finally completely fixed and even then I felt twinges of anxiety when I tried to take a bath or shower in it, after having been interrupted by the maintenance man far too many times because it was dripping on our poor downstairs neighbors when we'd been told it was fixed, patched, and completely safe to use. It's the apartment complex where every year the air conditioner required repairs, sometimes simply not working and sometimes dumping a bunch of water that would seep out from inside the locked utility closet. Every year.
Why'd we stay with it so long? See above, in re: "easier to hold onto things". Inertia is a powerful force, and I have a hard time recognizing patterns when I'm in them. Even after the events I referred to as Apartmentocalypse (when the now former manager seemed to be playing games to try to get us out rather than just fixing our tub), where we both decided that it was time to move out, it took more than a year for that to happen. That's in part because we had been waiting for an apartment at a really nice complex we'd found to open up. I was dragging my feet because I was iffy about the prospect of starting the same self-destructive patterns we'd fallen into anew at a new, really nice place. We never made the old apartment into any kind of a proper home, and I think it would have broken my heart to do that at the prospective new place.
So now I'm not living at the really nice apartment... after Aparmentocalypse, I don't think my nerves could stand living in another apartment complex for a while. My landlady here is also my housemate and my friend. People do let themselves in, but they're not (so far) surprising me in the bathroom. Artificial climate control is a little iffy in a big old house like this, but I'm not paying a huge rental fee that includes air conditioning and on-site maintenance that both refuse to work. And while I haven't experienced the worst of what summer has to offer yet, so far it's been very pleasant even on hot days to sit with a couple of windows open and enjoy the breeze.
We had to have our keys turned in before the office opened today. With interruptions from life and its opposite, we were working until 3:30 last night. My roommate crashed in the guest bedroom here after helping me drop off my stuff, which is still mostly sitting in the living room and kitchen here because I lacked the energy to carry it up the stairs last night. In a few minutes I have to go out with my mother on errands relating to the funeral later this week, so it won't be until this afternoon or evening that I can clear that up and really feel like this thing is done. Even then I still unpacking and sorting and putting away to do.
That our life together had been trending towards dysfunctional in many ways didn't help. Even after a few previous attempts at reducing unneeded, unwanted, and unused things. the place still tended towards overcrowded and overcluttered. I'd looked at the move (which actually took place back at the start of April) as a chance to shed a lot of the unnecessary encumberance from my life, and while I did accomplish that, at the end I kept more stuff than I'd expected... sometimes it's easier to just hold onto things then it is to sit down and figure out what you really need and what's going to do you any good. That is in many ways--or has been so far--the story of my adult life.
My new living space is now a bit cramped and cluttered, with boxes and improvised containers. As I unpack them I'm going to continue the process of simplifying my possessions, keeping only what fits... both my life and my living situation. We found so many things that had been packed away for 9-10 years "in case we needed it" or "until we found a place for it"...
Anyway, this was the same apartment that gave us so much trouble two Christmases ago... the one where it took more than half a year for the bathtub to be finally completely fixed and even then I felt twinges of anxiety when I tried to take a bath or shower in it, after having been interrupted by the maintenance man far too many times because it was dripping on our poor downstairs neighbors when we'd been told it was fixed, patched, and completely safe to use. It's the apartment complex where every year the air conditioner required repairs, sometimes simply not working and sometimes dumping a bunch of water that would seep out from inside the locked utility closet. Every year.
Why'd we stay with it so long? See above, in re: "easier to hold onto things". Inertia is a powerful force, and I have a hard time recognizing patterns when I'm in them. Even after the events I referred to as Apartmentocalypse (when the now former manager seemed to be playing games to try to get us out rather than just fixing our tub), where we both decided that it was time to move out, it took more than a year for that to happen. That's in part because we had been waiting for an apartment at a really nice complex we'd found to open up. I was dragging my feet because I was iffy about the prospect of starting the same self-destructive patterns we'd fallen into anew at a new, really nice place. We never made the old apartment into any kind of a proper home, and I think it would have broken my heart to do that at the prospective new place.
So now I'm not living at the really nice apartment... after Aparmentocalypse, I don't think my nerves could stand living in another apartment complex for a while. My landlady here is also my housemate and my friend. People do let themselves in, but they're not (so far) surprising me in the bathroom. Artificial climate control is a little iffy in a big old house like this, but I'm not paying a huge rental fee that includes air conditioning and on-site maintenance that both refuse to work. And while I haven't experienced the worst of what summer has to offer yet, so far it's been very pleasant even on hot days to sit with a couple of windows open and enjoy the breeze.
We had to have our keys turned in before the office opened today. With interruptions from life and its opposite, we were working until 3:30 last night. My roommate crashed in the guest bedroom here after helping me drop off my stuff, which is still mostly sitting in the living room and kitchen here because I lacked the energy to carry it up the stairs last night. In a few minutes I have to go out with my mother on errands relating to the funeral later this week, so it won't be until this afternoon or evening that I can clear that up and really feel like this thing is done. Even then I still unpacking and sorting and putting away to do.