One of my favorite bloggers
Les Cadeaux posted today about her ten year anniversary as a New Yorker and about all of the places that she's lived in the past ten years. That got me thinking...
Almost exactly 10 years ago from today, I was about to graduate from college in Corpus Christi and move out of my on-campus apartment. I moved there from home--it was my first foray into what I felt like was adulthood (although I still had an allowance--for groceries and such--and was still pretty much under my parents' thumb). That was a fun apartment because I was moving to Corpus with my oldest and dearest friend, Ann Marie (Hi Ann!). I remember getting to go on a shopping spree to buy all new stuff for our new apartment. I just recently sold the comforter that I had at that apartment in a garage sale; I still have the ironing board that we bought together; my towels from those days are now our "wash the car"--wait, we don't do that...ok, it's our "uh, the cat peed on the floor again" towels and I think that I still have a few pieces of tupperware from those days as well. I remember the second that my parents walked out of that apartment, after having moved us there, and I got my first taste of freedom, I knew that I could never live at home again. I occasionally have a dream that I've moved back to that apartment, but I'm the age that I am now and I'm living there with 20-year-old college students. I wake up in a cold sweat everytime I have that dream.
So, ten years ago, I was moving out of that apartment and into my first place all by myself. I loved that second apartment. I don't know if it was because it was all mine--I was working hard to pay the rent, so I was seldom there--but I adored it. It was a small one bedroom but it made me very happy. I felt very grown-up, living there. I also loved the pool at that complex. At the time, there weren't a lot of younger people living there, so I often had the pool to myself--except for the retired couple who spent everyday, all day at the pool (seriously). They were the tannest; wrinkly-est (they were probably only 36 years old) people I'd ever seen. Honestly, they'd be at the pool when I left for work in the morning, they'd be there on the off-day that I came home to grab lunch and then they were there when I got home from work. I remember how great that pool was when I had a weekend off--it was a very relaxing place to be. It was when my 6 month lease was up at this apartment that Kevin proposed the idea of us moving in together. I was excited that he asked (a commitment! from Kevin!) but also very sad to give up my independence. As much as I adore Kevin and I've never regretted that we lived together, I often wish that I would've lived on my own just a little longer.
Kevin and I moved into a cute little 2 bedroom/1 bath old house that was owned by one of Kevin's college professors. She was by far, the biggest bitch that I've every dealt with in my whole life. Our rent was to be in her post office box by 8am on the day that rent was due (on the 1st--there was no grace period). So, this meant that we had to mail the check well in advance of the 1st, to ensure that it was in the post office box in time. If it wasn't there on time, she charged us something absurd like $100 an hour for every hour it was late. She was also very strict about lots of things that, at the time, seemed ridiculous to us. Now that we're home owners ourselves, I sort of understand where she was coming from, but she was still pretty much a psychotic cow. Anyway, that was a fun time in our lives. We had a great backyard, where we often played croquet with our good friends. The downside was that our landlady put the house on the market while we were living there, so there were realtors and other people in and out of the house all the time. If you're trying to sell your own home, you always want to make sure that everything looks nice all of the time, however, we were quite happy living there and didn't want it to sell, so we did nothing to make sure that things were nice and tidy when it was to be shown. We were asshole tenants. At one point, Kevin and I even tossed around the idea of buying this house ourselves, but thought that the $75,000 asking price was exorbidant. Now that we've lived in Houston for awhile, $75,000 sounds like chump-change.
After having our bellies-full of our hellish landlady, we opted to move to an apartment not too far from that house. I have good memories of our apartment at Chateau Santa Fe (insert French-style-sinister laugh "au au au" here--Kevin does it well) for numerous reasons. First of all, it represented an escape from our awful landlady--the office management at this small apartment complex very much left it's residents alone, which was a welcome change from our rent house. Also, it's where we adopted our first cats--Banjo and Nugget (because pets were a big no-no at the rent house). We had wonderful neighbors at this new apartment too: Gerald and James. They often brought over food for us; brought us pina coladas if they saw us sitting out by the pool; checked in on our cats when we were out of town--just wonderful people. Kevin and I also got engaged and married while we were living at this apartment. It was at this apartment where Kevin first brought up the option of us moving to Houston and turned my world upside down.
So, off to Houston we went. Our first apartment in Houston was fun. We lived in the Museum District, right across from Hermann Park. This was a fun move because the apartment was new and we had all of our new, un-used wedding gifts to move into it, so it felt like a total fresh start. I had fun unpacking new dishes, silverware, etc into the new kitchen cabinets and getting everything arranged "just so". We enjoyed the location of this apartment too. We often walked to the museums and park--it felt like we were having the quintesenctial "Houston/big city experience". This apartment was also where I first began honing my mad cooking skillz and got into dinner parties and entertaining.
From that apartment, we bought our first house together--a three-story townhome in the Houston Heights. The rent was so expensive at the apartment, that we decided to invest our money into purchasing a house instead of throwing it away each month on rent. The townhome was a great transition for us. Our only yard was a glorified flower bed, so there was little upkeep there. We had many happy times at the townhome--lots of entertaining and friendships made. We also adored our neighborhood. The Heights has a very small-town feel to it. We knew most of our neighbors and remain close to many of them even now. We could walk to the local coffee bar, where we went to the Saturday Farmer's Market most weeks. As much as we loved living there, crime was pretty bad. Luckily, we had a big, ugly gate on the front of our house, so someone would have had to really work hard to get into our house, so I felt reasonably safe there. It was here that on Labor Day morning, 2003 (I think), our beloved Molly Cat showed up on our second-story deck, clearly dehydrated, hungry and having just given birth. A couple of months later, her babies were located and Molly and her son, Boo became permanent residents of our house. We also rescued Wynonna and her mother Naomi while living at the townhome. Yes, we were quite the "crazy cat house" for quite awhile--and still are, in fact. It was while living in the townhome that we also found out that Anna Claire was getting ready to join our little family. I took the pregnancy test in the second-floor bathroom of the townhome...
When it came time to close on the townhouse and remove the last of our stuff, I couldn't bring myself to go and say a final "goodbye" to it. Even though we hoped and prayed, in the months that it was on the market, to just get rid of it, when it came time to finally be done with that townhome, I felt a pang of sadness. It wasn't about the walls, ceilings and floors...it was the memories that we made there and the lifestyle that it represented. The two flights of stairs represented our young, carefree lifestyle, wherein we never worried about a little one falling. The loftyness of the floorplan represented a time in our lives when we didn't need doors to close off rooms so as not to disturb sleeping infants and the deck represented our many crisp evenings of dining al fresco while enjoying a bottle of wine and talking about fun places to go and cool things to do.
Now, we have a wonderful home in Oak Forest, surrounded by towering Oak, Pecan and Pine trees. Our family room isn't sleek and sophisticated anymore, instead it's cluttered with a baby swing, a bouncie seat and various and sundry baby paraphenalia. Our kitchen cabinets are full of not interesting barware (the perfect glass for every imaginable cocktail), but several different types of baby bottles and nipples. Our master bedroom doesn't have the perfect crisp, white sheets, folded perfectly over our crisp, white comforter. Instead, our wrinkled bed is currently covered with piles of freshly-laundered baby clothes that I haven't had time to put away.
The past ten years have brought many moves and changes to our lives. I can't imagine what the next ten years have in store for us.
Edited to add: 10 years ago, it also wouldn't have taken me two days to write this blog. Stick the kid in the swing--bust out a few lines; Put baby in bouncie seat--write a few more; Baby is finally down for the night--write until I can't stay awake myself; etc.
