Moving on.

At the end of this month, I am moving out of my beautiful old apartment in the Slope, and am moving in with a friend to his beautiful (and newer) apartment in Kensington. And I am excited by the potential of this arrangement to (a) greatly better my financial situation; (b) give me a bedroom that does not double as a hallway; (c) allow me to again live with a friend and to feel that sense of community. But I am also a little bit sad. I have lived here for almost 4 years. In this space I have had 5 of my 19 roommates.

I moved here with Nathan in the summer of 2003, right before I started grad school. We often talked about how blessed we felt to have this place, and the space that it allowed us. It has been the site of 3 Halloween parties, 2 amazing Thanksgiving dinners, several pre-Christmas gift givings, an Easter egg painting party, a going-away party for a dear friend, and more living room dancing than I care to mention. It has hosted roughly 20 visitors to the City, some of them more than once. Our living room housed three friends (who were then counted as roommates) in times when they were without homes. This is maybe the first place I have ever felt was truly home. I will miss my ganormous sink, and my tiny stove, and repeatedly validating my landlord that everyone who comes over admires the brickwork in the living room. But at the same time, I feel like it's time to move on. We heart you, 544.

P.S.--Just in case you never got to see the wonder that was 544, it's now on-line. It was nice to see it there, though I do feel just a wee-bit violated that there were pictures of my bedroom on the Internet without my knowledge. Thank goodness I cleaned.