Jeff and Jodi’s Epic Bike Move by Will Vanlue on Flickr

I’m moving.  I’m pretty sure the tears are because I’ve developed allergies to cardboard, packing tape, and bubble wrap simultaneously, and not at all because I’m leaving the place I’ve called home for six years.  You can disagree with me if you want, because I’m just making that up to keep from sounding like a wimp.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are things I will not miss.  For instance, I live in a converted warehouse that wasn’t built to be a residence, and in one of the corners the walls don’t quite meet.  If you’re standing at the right angle at the right time of day, you can see daylight.  I’ve seen it snow inside my apartment.  I won’t miss that.  I also live above a restaurant.  I don’t know why it is that they like to dump all their glass bottles into the recycling bin at dawn, but they do, and the restaurant has a bar, so that’s a lot of bottles.  I won’t miss that, either, though it’s been a pretty reliable alarm clock.  I also won’t miss the trains that run immediately behind the building, and I definitely won’t miss whoever it is who thinks it’s a good idea to blast Justin Bieber at two in the morning.

I’ve made this into a home, though, the first I’ve ever had on my own.  I’ve lived on my own for a while, but I never stayed anywhere for long.  I’m a rolling stone, baby, and I gather no moss.  Except here.  My home, my sacred space, my sanctuary.  The place where, no matter how mad the Chloe Cat is, she has to let me in because she has nobody else to feed her.  I’ve had sleepless nights here because I was anxious, because I was ecstatic, because I had a broken heart, because I had a broken bone, or because I just couldn’t sleep.  I started this blog here.  I can see where my viewership is coming from, and it knocks me out to see that little map light up with countries all across the world in which people are reading this blog, and it all started here.

I’m moving to a great place and I’m looking forward to making a new home in which I haven’t had any heartbreaks yet, or had to shovel snow off the floor.  Maybe my new neighbors will blast Muse at two in the morning, or (it could happen) Bach.  Maybe I’ll blast Bach and see how long it takes people to complain (prediction:  17 seconds).  I’m looking forward to living in a place where the ceiling is so high, I have to submit a work order to get a light bulb changed.  But mostly, I’m looking forward to not having to pack any more boxes, or wrap any more fragile items, or try to hold a box closed with one hand while I tape it up with the other using tape that has somehow become stuck to itself in the last half-second.  Sentimentality is nice and all, but if this doesn’t end soon, I’m going to find out who it is who’s been blasting Justin Bieber for the past few years, shove them in a box, tape it shut, and mail it to Canada.

And I’m going to miss the hell out of this place.  Even though it has no closet space, the floors slant, and it managed to get flooded on the top floor, it was home.  Au revoir, apartment mine.  May you be tenanted by good people who always remember to change your air filter.