“Crooked landing, crooked landlord…this is where we used to live.”

Apartment cleaned. Keys turned in. All done.

I know we don’t live here anymore
We bought an old house on the Danforth
She loves me and her body keeps me warm
I’m happy here

But this is where we used to live…

A new chapter begins.

Erin and I have known each other since Freshman year at Allegheny where we lived on the same hall. For the next three years we were roommates. A few years later, she moved to Buffalo and we were housemates. And then we weren’t. And we had our own apartments. And then we decided to move in together again. Of course, then she met Rand and for the last year has been my *rentmate* 😉 However, over the course of many years…this is the first time that both of us are in the same kind of a relationship at the same time. You know, the co-habitating kind! BRAND new to the both of us. So, while I was MORE THAN HAPPY to get out of the OLD APARTMENT. I feel someone resigned and bittersweet about closing out a certain chapter of my life and moving on to the next.

After cleaning the apartment, we headed to dinner. Erin dropped me off at my new place and handed me a gift card from the *gang* FAR TOO GENEROUS of my friends and I thank them all.

“We wanted to congratulate you on completing one chapter of your life and beginning the next…hopefully this will help! With lots of love…”

Of course, as I walked up the stairs, I had tears in my eyes.

I was once asked a question…

“How many parts would you divide your life into?”

Now for some people they might include many parts…childhood, high school, college, graduate school, new career, marriage, new house, baby…and I could separate my life into these chapters as well.

High School, College, North Carolina, Law School, Life after Howie, Life after XYZ agency where I worked for 5 years, Law School.

But I didn’t. My life was split in two.

Life before turning 16 and life after turning 16.

That was the year when everything, everything in my life as I knew it went to hell and a handbasket. My grandma (who we lived with) and who was my best friend passed away. A few months later, my dad passed unexpectedly from cancer no one knew about. My mom started dating a month later. We had to sell the land and home, the one my grandfather built. And then my mom ended up marrying a different man with young children in a different town less than a year later. I only lived in this world for a short time, I went away to college. However I have defined my life, unintentionally, as “life before and life after” that moment in time. I very strongly feel like I am the same *adult* I became the day my dad passed away.

I find this confusing. I have been through so much since that time. After graduating from college, I packed up a car without a job or a place to live, or any money truthfully, and headed to N.C. for an adventure with a group of friends from High School. I came back a year later and started my first career working with at-risk children which would continue for 5 years. I sortofdated/dated/befriended a man for over 5 years and broke up with him, I went to law school *forever*, I had the blackest most depressing moment of my life and somehow lived through it (with the help of MANY amazing friends and family), I turned down the chance to be a NYC Teaching Fellow, I started my career at the current agency, I met Mark…and now?

And now?

I’m happy here.