No. 67 Apt. 3 | Another Goodbye Worth It
I don’t know how much others care about one of my little apartments. Its hard to put yourself and your words out there, feeling as though no one would read them, but here I am.
This morning I looked through a few photos from two weeks ago, when I said goodbye to my third apartment, and the 6th place I’ve called home. I had mostly moved out in early March, but my mattress, some plant pots, rug, and few other belongings remained. After my parents and I struggled down a winding staircase, bruised some hallway walls, and strapped my mattress to the roof of my dad’s car (an homage to Turkey), I headed back a couple days later to properly clean.
Opening the door felt normal. The screech of turning the key was so normal, but the moment the door flung open the most abnormal sight greeted me. Empty- nothing but wood floors and nails in the walls. What use to be a cozy little living room now looked like like a simple zillow listing. It was surreal
I swept the house for the last time. Hah, I thought it wouldn’t be that dusty, but the sweep pile reminded me of all the cracks in the windows and AC units that allowed a silent and stead flow of dirt, pollen, and the world. I would miss it and I wouldn’t miss it. I started to mop those wood floors for the last time. Almost four years a Frazier had lived here. This was my sister’s first apartment too. Her first apartment out of college, with her husband. Then it was mine. Mine and Ellyns. It was hard to know which scratches were from couches in and out during the 1950s or my sister’s dresser in 2016, or perhaps my Ikea bed I built last year.
I glanced out my bedroom window for the last time. I thought about all the times I rushed to the window to see if my friends had pulled up, or stumbled out of bed to hear semi trucks honking at each other for the best parking spot to unload at kroger at 1am, or laugh at drunk midnight taco bell orders I could hear if I cracked the window open. I loved how loud that room was and I hated how loud that room was. There was a sense of nostalgia when there was drilling on poplar, or honking and yelling on prescott street. The world was right there, I wasn’t far from it.
Now swept and mopped, I started to scrub the the tub. Damn that tub. Never fully drained, never really clean. We gave up on the idea of baths because we had lived months with 4 minutes long hot showers- only to find out that some how the heat nozzle on the water heater in the kitchen had almost been shut off. I cried in that shower when I had my first 10 minutes HOTTT shower. It was comical. I would miss it and I wouldn’t miss it.
As I was finishing up, I realized there were pieces of paper taped all over the walls in the bathroom. I hadn’t even noticed. They had been there so freakin long, they were a part of the tile and paint in my mind. Verses scattered across the bathroom. I slowly pulled the tape off, praying for it to be a clean break.
I was reminded of the move out of my first home. The last day I was in our family apartment in Turkey. I was packing up to leave for camp, and I wouldn’t be coming back to that apartment. This was it. This was goodbye. I had a verse written in big letters, taped to the wall above my bed. Right before I left for the last time, I reached up and slowly peeled off the tape, praying for it to be a clean break. It was a clean break from the wall.
But goodbyes for me are never a clean break. Flakes of myself always stick to the tape. Homes go with you, even if you never walk their floors or touch the walls again. That’s what I’ve learned after all these moves.
I folded up that piece of paper and tucked it into my backpack. Deut 31:6 would go with me. It would go with me.
16 Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
As I stood in that little bathroom in Apartment 3, in Memphis Tennessee, the act of folding up a piece of paper was a full circle moment. I’m only 22, but I’m already having those.
I tucked Lamentations 3:16-24 into my backpack. It would go with me.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
and made me cower in ashes;
17 my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness[a] is;
18 so I say, “My endurance has perished;
so has my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b]
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
Some people ask me why I love apartments. Why the cold showers, the dusty floors, the loud neighbors, the stairs with groceries, and the creepy parking lots. I just love it. Its the inconveniences that keep me in contact with the world, with myself. It slows me down. It makes Turkey feel real and not so distant. It makes me feel like my life is a little less choppy, and more like a fluid timeline.
1. MOVE IN DAY IN APRIL OF 2018.
2. SIX MONTHS INTO LIVING TOGETHER
I’m so thankful for Apt 3. It was a really hard beautiful two years. I was sick a lot in that apartment. Quarantined often- surviving the flu, pinworms, fleas, aLmOsT bed bugs, head colds, allergies, chronic pain, headaches, breakdowns, and unknown fevers. We had dinner parties often. Full tables of food. Late night conversations on the couch. Frequent visitors- a revolving door of my favorite people in the world. Collectively I think we had at least someone living with us 4 months of those two years. Birthdays and Christmas twice. Crazy thunderstorms, power outages, 911 calls on neighbors, late night cookie dough runs across the street. Apt 3 represents a time I’ve never felt such healing and breaking at the same time. A season where a new community was formed.
I’m thankful for Ellyn. My longest roommate ever. We tested each other, learned each other, and loved each other. We got sick together, cooked together, hosted together, laughed together, cried together, watched Friends together, danced together, cleaned together, joked together, worshipped together, talked together, and everything else. I’ve learned so much about compassion, loyalty, and care from Ellyn. We got to welcome Ellyn’s first nephew/my best friends first baby into the world together. That was crazy.
We barely knew each other before we moved in together. We were both really nervous about it. Emily, her sister, was our common link. We set a few ground rules, and just started living life together. The rest really is history now.
Number sixty seven, apartment three goes down in my personal history- another home. Worth it. Worth the heartache of missing the way things were: the parties, the laughs, the little kitchen, the back stairwell of nightmares, the sound of a knock at the front door, the dashes across Prescott street, the walks to FYA, the cold showers, the sick days on the couch, the little lights up in the windows, the pull up bar only used for drying clothes, the tub that won’t drain, the sound of drilling at night, and all the little quirks of Apt 3. Where I came home from Turkey to, where I was picked up for my first date, where I started counseling, hosted my best parties yet, and made life long friends within.
