Ode to the Porpoise

Hello there friends. Tonight it all hit me. A week from tomorrow I will be granted the keys my very first home. I've slowly been packing up the apartment and although I am very excited about the whole thing, it also means that I'll be leaving the apartment that I've lived in for the past 3 1/2 years.

This was my first place. And it was the place of many firsts. The first time living by myself. Alone. It was the place where I came to the realization that I knew nothing about myself but also found myself. It's the place that I eventually started calling 'home'. Only here would I come to the understanding that I could do whatever it is that I wanted to do. I realized I could go an entire day without talking, find strange ways of entertaining myself, sleep with all the lights on, eat cereal for dinner if I felt like it, leave dishes in the sink, surf the web till 3am, paint the kitchen pink, shower at odd hours, or not shower at all. Looking back, there are also times that I question what I was thinking. Like the two, even three times that I accidentally ran out of oil, 'forgot' to register my car in the state of NH only to later discover that my license had been suspended because of it. Or how about the time I painted my bedroom lime green. How was that ever a good idea? There were also a couple of times that the keys ended up hanging from the front door overnight. I'm lucky no one let themselves into the place while I was sleeping!

All in all its been fun. It seems strange that this was really the only apartment that I looked at before deciding to move in. Somehow I lucked out with the neighbors. Vivian is the sweet old lady to the left. She's got to be pushing 90 by now. Yet when I come home from work after a long day of heavy snowfall, my walkway is always meticulously shoveled. God bless the woman. She's amazing and much more in shape than I ever will be at that age. And then there's 'crazy' lady to the right. Crazy Lady blows my mind. I've never known someone to be so blunt and to the point. I'll never forget the day I moved in. She came knocking on my door. It was that type of knock that made you think that whoever is knocking really has something important to say. I open the door and she asks, "Do you smoke pot?" She didn't introduce herself like the average person would. Nope, all she wanted to know was if I rolled blunts. I don't think she got the answer she was looking for because after I answered "um, no" she turned around and walked back to her house. She's always around whether I like it or not, but provides me with pure entertainment. I'm glad to only be moving up the street and staying within the same neighborhood. I can't wait to meet the characters that will be my new neighbors. Welcome to Atlantic Heights. You never know what you're gonna get.