Our First Apartment
By Amy Miller
Our little apartment is being emptied. All the pictures and artwork have been taken down from the walls, leaving them as blank as a piece of paper. Our couch has been sold, so movies are being watched in our bed now. The shelves have been cleared, and the drawers are empty. Clothes are in bags, appliances are wrapped up, and the random things are boxed up.. Well, pretty much everything is boxed up… our life… it’s all boxed up and ready to be put elsewhere. What a weird feeling that is. It’s this weird phenomena of multiple feelings at once: anxiousness, excitement, stress, happiness, and gratitude. This past week I spent every day organizing, de-junking, and packing since I had the week off between school semesters. All of these feelings were coming at me, as I took down pictures that were full of specific memories we had here in Provo. The feelings rushed again when we sold our sofa, because I was reminded of all the fun movie nights we had sitting on that couch, as well as other memories of me sleeping on that couch every day while recovering from my sinus surgery. With every box getting filled up and labeled, the more change I felt.
The FIRST DAY WE MOVED TREVOR INTO THE APARTMENT
I don’t like changes
For those of you that can’t tell from my past posts already, I have a problem with change. I don’t like being thrown off my routines, but that happened anyways. We gave away our coffee table, and no longer had anything to sit on to watch movies, so we moved our TV into our bedroom. I also stopped making meals, because I needed to have our kitchen (and everything else for that matter), packed up before the craziness of this week started. So with a week filled with back to school, packing up our entire apartment, eating out every day, and making sure all the little details of buying a home are in order, you can imagine how crazy I have been… just ask Trevor, haha. There are just multiple changes happening this week and though I know things will get better in a few weeks, I hate the lack of stability I am feeling. I have had some comforting feelings this week, however. I’ve been comforted knowing that this is only temporary. We will be moved into our house in a few days, and can continue building a life there. I’ve also had the sense of security knowing that a house is awaiting us, instead of panicking that we don’t have anywhere to go. The most comfort I have felt, however, is knowing that I can always feel a constant sense of tranquility and stability with my marriage. Even though some important aspects of our lives are kind of chaotic right now, I know Trevor and I will always have the consistency of each other’s love. What a great feeling that is.
First memories
This is our first apartment. No matter how beat up the floors are, how loud the air conditioning is, or how ugly the apartments look from the street, we have loved it because of all the first memories of our marriage that happened here. I’m so grateful for every one of those special memories, and I know I’ll carry those in every place we live at. We have made this place our home for the past 16 months, and it’s never been easy for me to leave the places I’ve called “home.” I don’t think it’s easy for a lot people, actually. I know many couples who move around so often, sometimes with every school year or semester. I don’t know how people move that often! From reading this post, you can obviously tell that I would have a hard time with that situation! I know that many people have that, “I can’t wait to leave” feeling with their housing situations, probably because they are most likely small and old, like ours. Saying that doesn’t come as easy for me, though, because you’ll remember that I have problems with getting attached easily! Yes, a big, beautiful house would be everyone’s ideal situation, but it’s always seemed impractical with being student newlyweds. Since I’m a very practical person, I wasn’t consumed with the attitude of wishing for a better living situation every day of my life. I got used to the curling laminate floors, and the lack of kitchen counter space. I just enjoyed where we were at because of the love we established here, and I am glad I did.
The humbling moments
We’ve all heard stories from older couples that say they struggled to make ends meet during their first few years of marriage, or that the only furniture they had when they first got married was a mattress. But they’ve also said how those were some of their best memories because they learned to rely on each other, and experienced it all together. What a humbling feeling that can be. For me, it wasn’t until a few weeks after we sealed the deal on our particular house that I started to get bugged about things in our apartment. Understandably so, I was excited for more space and brand new cleanliness. I’m not saying that I was perfect at being grateful for our apartment, because I think even the newest and nicest of apartments have downfalls, but we sure did embrace the positives often. Having this attitude helped us establish that “home-y” feeling even more. For those of you struggling to enjoy where you currently live, I suggest this idea of looking at the positives, as it might help you too, feel at home. Though I know the blessed/cursed sentimental part of me will probably make me cry buckets of tears on the day we leave, we are definitely excited and anxious to move into our first little home :) Seeing how empty our apartment is now, I am feeling more ready to move on to the next chapter of our freshly married lives :) Until then, we’ll enjoy watching movies on the bed, eating out every day, and tripping over piles of boxes.
(From the day we moved out, recreating our first apartment picture) #bittersweet
How was your first apartment experience? Did you hate it, or do you miss it?