On Moving

We're packing up and moving day is inching closer and closer. The house is looking more and more bare, and I am feeling even more excited than I thought I would.

When I left my comfy place in Arlington to relocate to the Hill, it was a really emotional experience. I moved to the DC area to start graduate school, and my apartment in Arlington was the only place I knew. It was the end of an era, you might say (anyone get that? Besides K-10, that is). Leaving that complex was difficult, but I was so excited to finally live in the city that it was infinitely more sweet than bittersweet.

This place. Well... it is what it is, I suppose. We should have known what we were getting into, especially since the previous tenants were in the midst of an ongoing war with Maria the Bitch Landlord from Hell (in which they lost their entire security deposit because she wouldn't cut them a break when they wanted to move out a month early. Her prerogative, I know, but they did find new tenants).

It wouldn't have done much to change my mind anyway - my commute had shrank (shrunk?) from thirty minutes to ten, I was living in a cool neighborhood, Union Station was only a few blocks away, and I finally felt as if I was in the middle of everything.

Then... things started to get weird. Our house fell apart before our eyes. Our alley/parking lot was always trashed. The market on the corner carried very questionable, maggot-filled products. There were constantly crazies in the alley (case in point - today, a totally drunk and/or high couple parked their car in the middle of the alley and chased each other around it, threatening violence and hurling insults and slurs, all while delicately carrying their 24-ounce cans of Coors. His was very nicely placed in a paper bag. Hers was not). And on and on and on.

It was easy to ignore these things because "I'm in the city! I have to get used to all of this, because it's the city!" And for the past two years, I did. I got used to it all.

Ha. It's funny what you can get used to when you think there's nothing better out there.

And I'm still going to miss this place. We're only moving four blocks south, and yet I feel as if I have to say goodbye. There are plenty of things that I won't miss, from the tourists at Union Station to the scary people in the alley to basically everything this house is about, but I will miss the "Good Morning!" I receive each day from the guard at the Thurgood Marshall Building. I'll miss cutting through Union Station at 3:00 a.m. and staring up at the gorgeous ceiling. I'll miss the coffeehouse on the corner with the amazing mochas. I'll miss my pretty kitchen floor. I'll miss living so close to Amanda.

But I'll look forward to an even shorter commute, a safer area, closer proximity to Eastern Market, and, of course, a nicer, warmer apartment.

And I can always walk the four blocks if I need to hear that friendly "Good Morning!"