Posthip

I’ve been in the same apartment for two years, the longest I’ve lived any one place by myself. Before moving into this place I’d moved 7 times in less than a year.

I picked this apartment because it was easy: walking distance to work, low deposit, close to public transit. Plus, I’d lived in the complex before, from 2002 to 2005, rooming with Dianna. It’s an okay place, but it has some drawbacks. It is a bit cookie cutter, with none of the character you’d normally find in Deep Ellum. The walls and ceilings are too thin, and it seems like people are always hanging around the hallway and parking garage. Oh, and it has stolen my soul.

I get home in the evenings now and die. I’m suddenly tired and lethargic, unwilling to move from in front of the computer screen, even though I’ve spent the previous 8 or 9 hours staring at another computer screen. It’s a wonder I’m able to feed myself. I have piles of unopened mail scattered all over the apartment, unread stacks of magazines (magazine subscriptions being an accomplice in my inner death), unwashed clothes, unkempt floors, unsuffixed suffixes.

Right now, away from home, I feel fine. I feel good, even. But when I enter the darkness of my apartment, I will die again. It’s like I lose all focus, all motivation. All the to-do lists in the world won’t save me. And my to-do list is not a small thing– I should be able to hide beneath it. But the anti-anima of my apartment will find me there, pull me into its lair, and eat my will to live.

So, I’m moving. Hopefully, now that I have a timeline for withdrawal, the terrorists will lay low and wait for me to leave. Because that’s what happens, right?

The other thing I’m doing is getting rid of everything I own. Okay, not totally, but I am moving into an approximately 330 sq. ft. garage apartment, down from the 850 sq. ft. or so I’m in now, so there will be cuts and by necessity a new living philosophy. It’s something I’ve thought about for years, paring my possessions down, my wardrobe down, eliminating clutter. I’ve made attempts at it in the past, but always stopped short because it seemed arbitrary. I had plenty of space, so what was the point? But it doesn’t seem arbitrary anymore. I hope that I am under no obligation by saying this, but my life has become unmanageable.

I’ve really been enjoying looking through the spaces here. One of the refrains among the people there is “There is nothing in my apartment that I don’t love.” And you can tell, looking through their homes, how rewarding that is. Everything there has a purpose, usually more than one. Everything there is chosen, not just accepted or tolerated. There aren’t corners where they are able to stick things they don’t want to think about, because there isn’t room for it. “If I bring something into the apartment, I know I have to take something out,” is another refrain.

Refusing to make choices isn’t as liberating as it seems as first. It becomes oppressive. Things pile up. Why do we keep things there that we don’t love? Why don’t we realize we have to move something out when we move something in?

This isn’t all of the answer, but it is part of it.

(Originally posted April 29, 2009)