that's a wrap

As the year wraps up so am I. All of my projects seem to be coming to a close at work (new ones on their way no doubt), I'm crossing off errands and year long to-do lists are getting shorter and shorter. Even my Christmas shopping is near complete, something that never usually begins until about December 15th. I've shared so much on suddenly lovely that I feel that a change in my life should be somewhat ceremonially put into words and up on the blog. I am physically wrapping up everything I own, I am moving to Brooklyn.

A little over a year ago I wrote about my then current roommate's decision to move out of our cozy 2 bedroom upper west side apartment to an apartment where her and her boyfriend would share the space. Looking back at what I had wrote, I can assure you that I've become one of those absolutely crazy s.o.b.'s that claim "when you know you know." Because now I know and guess what, it's true that another borough has enough room to house both our physical and emotional space.

My first ever apartment (student housing for a summer internship) was in Brooklyn Heights right off the Clark Street stop on the 2, 3. I loved everything about that neighborhood. I was scared to death to use the subway, spent Saturday and Sunday mornings along the water just admiring New York City and it became a definite reason why I returned to the city once I graduated college. Coming up on 4 years of working in NYC I am thrilled to be returning to Brooklyn of a new neighborhood. East Williamsburg is an up and coming neighborhood which I've come to love and will soon call home.

I currently reside in a smallish 2 bedroom apartment on the upper west side. I say smallish because to anyone unaware of the typical/affordable NYC apartment, my place is hellishly small but to someone more aware of the apartment situation in the city and the absurd rent then my apartment isn't so bad. I live a block from Central Park and the American History Museum. I am chatty with my neighbors, my grocery store clerks, the trainers at my gym, the supers on my entire block and the bodega owner. I've been there for 2 years now which is just long enough for me to soak up all that I can of the neighborhood. Plus, in moving to Brooklyn I gain a private deck with so much potential for a garden.

More so than the garden, I gain the experience of living with my significant other. Both of us being designers means we can equally geek out at the wonderful studio space we are setting up in the second bedroom. As we combine our things and bring the apartment to life I can't help but look back at the space between and wonder who that was writing the post. Who knew so much could happen in a year. Maybe in 12 months I'll be looking back at this post and wondering the same thing. Time will tell. Hello Brooklyn.

on trial

There comes a moment where two people decide to share a space. Ive written before about not yet coming into that moment but when my past roommate left to move in with her boyfriend she explained it better than I ever could. She reasoned that "not being together became far more inconvenient than being together in separate spaces." Or something like that. Traveling back and forth was tiring, lugging your things, forgetting certain things, mistakenly trying to pay for coffee by flipping extra underwear on the counter (true story) got old. While I completely believed her, I still didn't think that moment would happen to me. Especially because of the two week trial.

Between leases my then boyfriend moved in for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks I remember being alarmingly relieved. It was shitty of me but I realized that while I really liked him, I didn't really like him there all the time. We would knock into each other, step on each other, glance over like "oh you again." I had no idea that I felt this way until those two weeks were over. I kept thinking, what if we had moved into together. Signed over in blood for a 12 month lease in which, we may have ended up killing each other or worse, broke up and still had to share a space. He was clean, nice, respectful, etc. etc. but something didn't fit. It was those two puzzle pieces that totally look like they fit together but when placed together you realize the cardboard is cut a little to the right or left and then back into the pile they go. You have to keep searching.

On July 2nd while doing a weekly strip down of my apartment I smoothed out my bedding when something caught my eye. A bug. A small bug on my bed. Since then while the apartment is in my mind completely and totally unlivable I have been staying in a far, far away place known as Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A far cry from the Upper West Side and quite literally on the other side of the rainbow. In the cab ride over that night I remember thinking, this may be the two week trial and the dread that followed. I couldn't go back to my apartment if I wanted to. Everything has been flipped, cleaned, sealed and every inch poisoned. I thought sure, we spend a ton of time together but what if after 5 days straight he starts to hate me or me hate him. What if he's secretly a freak? What if he sees that I'm secretly a freak? (Meanwhile we had already discussed that we like each other because we are both freak-like in our own respectful manner.) The moment that I told him the two week trial story and he looked at me, squeezed my hand twice and said something along the lines of "well, we'll see."

It's been 15 days and I'm still at his place. My makeup is in the cabinet. Some of my dresses hang in the closet. I've purchased extra ice cube trays and set measuring cups in the kitchen. I pretend his snoring doesn't bother me because it actually doesn't. He hands me my mouth guard before I fall asleep so that I don't wake up with headaches from biting down impossibly hard in my sleep. I wake up to my alarm just like I used to, I brush my teeth and blow dry my hair. Sometimes we walk to the subway together and sometimes one of us has to leave before the other. Once he went to the grocery store for me so that I could make us dinner when I got home. He didn't even realize that it made me so happy, that gesture of picking up the ingredients. Mostly because it has been easy, simple and overwhelmingly enjoyable. He reminds me to drink more water and I remind him to brush his teeth before bed. We always say good night and good morning. The oddest things I've learned in 15 days about this person that I'm sharing a space with. The most wonderful times when he asks me to dance while the water boils before dinner. When he brings me two options of lemonade from the store because he wasn't sure which I'd prefer. (The answer is both.)

I still have my place on the Upper West Side and eventually will move on back. While I hate the fact that a bug forced this upon both of us, I am finding it very assuring that we've past the two week mark by two days and we're both still alive. We've learned a lot, like how much I hate blueberry pancakes and how he used to eat way too much pizza. So while I've been away from the blog, I've been here in his apartment in Brooklyn. I can see the city from the deck but am in no rush to escape back. After all, home is where the heart is.