This Apartment Life

 You know when you are in your twenties and you are moving every year and it is exciting and fun because three friends and a pick-up truck will move everything you own for a pizza and some beer?  You are generally moving in with someone or moving out on your own, or moving to a better place and the move is part of the excitement. You are showing the world that you are succeeding, you are conquering, and you have the square footage to prove it!

Can I just say that moving in your late forties and at fifty is absolutely none of these things? I had a wonderful, beautiful, peaceful apartment I would have stayed in for years had the owner of it not wanted it back to let her mother live there.  Good luck on those death stairs, old woman, I thought bitterly as I crept down the death stairs for the last time.  It had windows on windows and the light streamed in and two patios: one if I wanted to have weird conversations with passing neighbors and one if I did not.  It was insulated, it was convenient, it was pretty, and I had to leave it. It made me almost physically sick thinking of taking all of my belongings, putting them in boxes, and carting them across town for the third time in four years. Running low on energy, time, and the will to keep looking, I jumped at the next apartment rental that looked decent.  I moved and not any of it was exciting and none of it made me feel like I had a lot to show the world, even with the increased square footage. 

Said death stairs

If you haven’t lived in an apartment for awhile and maybe are waxing nostalgic about it, you remember nothing about apartments.  Apartments are loud.  They are filled with people you can hear sneeze through the walls but won’t look you in the eye in the parking lot.  Apartments are mailrooms and a gym that looks promising but also holds magazines from 2017.  Apartments are not knowing why the power keeps going off or why the water is so hot one day and cold the next.  It is hearing people come home and leave and yell and live their lives on top of yours.  It is someone wearing cement shoes living above you and you being the person with cement shoes to the people below you.  It is communal living without the community.

I am not a fan of this new place. They really saved on insulation when they built this place because they just didn’t use any. I can hear everything, everything, EVERYTHING.  My next-door neighbor has terrible sleep apnea.  I know because I hear him snore through our shared bedroom wall.  My cement shoe neighbor upstairs has taken on an exercise regime that has him run back and forth, back and forth, open the sliding glass door, slam the sliding glass door, drop something heavy and repeat. I hate him almost violently and I am not 100% sure what he looks like.  I believe him to be the guy who looks like he played a lot of rugby and lost but am not entirely sure.

We have had a lot of boiler issues here and the hot water is touch and go.  This weekend it is entirely gone. As in, I have no hot water until maybe Monday when the part they ordered comes in.  When I called the office to ensure I really would not have hot water until Monday, the stressed and bored woman there told me they were going to open up some empty apartments for people to shower in.  I laughed and laughed!!  I don’t speak to these people in the parking lot; no way am I showering after them.  I am supposed to queue up behind cement shoes and sleep-apnea guy?  No thank you.  When I told her that I pay way too much to live like I am camping, she passed along the email to her manager so I could let him know how this boiler issue is ruining my life. He will be getting a lengthy email from me complete with how he should not charge me for water this month.  I might include such lies that as a teacher, I can really only use hot water to its fullest on the weekend and now he has ruined that for me and that after a week of serving others, I came home to a cold and cold-faucet only apartment.  

As a woman of inadequate means, apartment life is going to mine for a long, long time.  I will try to focus on the perks of apartment life.  I will list the things I like about this apartment.Nah, not today.  Today, I feel like looking up curses to immobilize cement shoes (just temporarily; I am not a monster) and use zillow to see where my next move will take me.  I hope that they have a “hot water” option to minimize my search.

Another Year Over

I have been trying for the past few days to come up with a good way to describe and wrap up the past year. I wanted to make it shiny and fun and poignant. I wanted to unveil to you a McMahon Unwrapped much like a Spotify Wrapped with Best of, Favorite, and hours spent living a life. And while I do have best of and favorites, hours spent living a life requires a calculator, so that is out. I keep coming up with a year that was kind of good, kind of bad, and, overall, just a year. 

I’m grateful for this year. I had small adventures and large ones .I got to see amazing new places in WY, CO, and SD. I got to see all of my siblings and parents at the same time. I had adventures that I wrote about and some I have kept to myself because, well, they are mine. I have had joy and laughter and a milestone birthday surrounded by friends. I have had wins in the sports I coach and any day I can get a teenager to put down their phone and listen to me talk about literature is also a win. I have had happiness and contentment settle over me and leave me feeling peaceful and smiling. I have wondered at the beauty of snow, ice, mountains, and rivers. I have climbed and walked and hiked and moved through this Earth to see and do things. I have had excitement and wonder and anticipation. I have laughed with my head thrown back and for the world to hear.

I have had losses. I have cried and hurt and healed. I have cried and hurt and remain hurting. I have heard bad diagnoses; I have seen what it can and will do to a person I love. I have heard words I would rather not hear. I have felt inefficient, confused, and lackluster. I have felt like the things I do are not enough. I have felt tired to my very bones and depth of my soul. I have seen terrible things and heard worse. I have missed my kids until it hurts and keeps hurting. I have simply sat and stared and sighed. There are times where I just existed. Times when I forgot I was important or what I was doing was important. I have felt my heart hollow out. I have been scared, afraid, and hesitant. And with all of these things, just like that, another year over.

this tired.

There are always things we hope for when one thing ends and a new one begins. We make a big deal of saying “this year I will…” or “I will never…”. I don’t seem to have any of those right now. I wish for the things I always wish for: healthy, happy kids, a Bills’ Super Bowl win, and someone to stumble across my blog and offer me silly amounts of money to write for them. I wish certain things wouldn't happen: a hot summer like the last one, Donald Trump on any kind of ballot, yet another move to yet another apartment. 

I make no claims on this upcoming year. I know it will be a year, like the last one, where the good and the bad both attend. I will love and be loved. I will hurt and be hurt. I will laugh and cry. I will grow and feel stagnant. I will be an adventurer and a homebody. I will make friends and lose friends. I will delight and offend. I will succeed and fail. I will know things and learn things and forget other things. I will be confident and nervous. I will have great fun and great anxiety. In all of this, I hope I am present and acknowledging both good and bad as it happens and making room for what comes next. And in experiencing all of these things, in being a mom and a partner and a teacher and a coach and a human, I know it will seem like no time at all before this year is over too.