On Wanting More Space...

I live in a small apartment. I have no bedroom door. My space has clearly defined rooms, but it works in a context of me. I would probably be able to let someone else live here too... Someone who didn't come with a lot of baggage. Literally. I have way too many things.

Today, however, I indulged the idea that I would not always be a team of me. I don't mean that to sound sad. On the contrary, I looked at a two-bedroom apartment with the full intention of making an offer on it, if it... if it struck me. 

I am a believer in knowing what is right when you see it. In following my gut. At least I try to be. I know that every time I have followed that instinct, I have been right, and when things have gone awry, I can, in retrospect, see my own misgivings before following through with something I did not trust. 

The small apartment in which I live now, to tell a brief story. I saw it first online when I was at a hotel, at a convention, in Hilton Head, during Georgia forest fires. The hotel was full of smoke. I walked on the beach. I got bored and checked the new listings on a Thursday. 

There it was. Photos that were just so. Of this small apartment with a navy bedroom, an odd sense of living-room space and a long marble kitchen counter. "That is my home," I thought. I felt it. I had been to two dozen open houses. I had seen hundreds of listings. That one. I knew it. It wasn't even extraordinary. But I knew that was my home.

I write this from that room. 

That was a Thursday. On Saturday morning, I was home in Park Slope, wearing a slouchy sweatshirt, and it was raining. I knew it was the time of the first open house. There would be another tomorrow... And I slumped down in my chair. And thought to myself: "If you lose your house because you're lazy, you will hate your lazy ass forever." 

And I got up. Put on a hoodie. Got an umbrella. And came here. It was, so different from this place I'm in now. It had an Eames-like table, artsy dining chairs and a clumsy leather sofa sectional set in different parts of the room. The hallway was black. But I knew. I saw. This was my home. 

I put in an offer the next day, when I made my brother in law (slash-broker), friends and sister come with. 

Nate made us coffee in some fancy double-drip thing he had going on. And then I took over his home. 

I have moved my bed from this wall to that in the subsequent five years. Oh, I wish I had a window. Oh, I wish, I wish... Oh, asshole. Go to sleep. 

The moral of my story is this; I saw a photograph of a living room on the Internet while I was at a Carolina beach hotel for a conference, and knew. Even then I knew. 

Today I walked into a beautiful apartment and I knew. I knew I was buying an apartment, even though I'm not married, for me and my children. I knew I didn't want to walk up to the fourth floor carrying a baby. I don't have a partner right now, I haven't made that choice yet. But I decided that my next home needed to be ready for that.

And not being ready for that, I have decided to get a new couch. It's blue I will have to repaint the living room. I think that saved me about $100,000, and a lot of hassle. Someday, I'll have to make that move. But not yet. 

But it's nice to know that I expect it.