Four Years in This Apartment
Four years here, and at two in the morning it still feels like a place a friend just lent me.
I woke up around two and got water, and now I'm sitting in the dark living room, and it occurred to me, calmly, that this apartment still feels like somewhere I'm staying rather than somewhere I live. I've been here four years.
I know where everything is. My hand finds the light switch without looking. But at this hour the rooms feel on loan, like a place a friend lent me while they're traveling, and I keep half-expecting to find their things in a drawer I haven't opened.
It isn't a bad feeling. It's almost nice. The streetlight comes through the same way it always does. The radiator ticks. I recognize all of it and none of it belongs to me, and somehow that makes it easier to sit here at two in the morning without needing anything from the place.
I'll probably feel completely at home by daylight. I always do. But right now I'm a guest in my own front room, and I think I might stay up a little longer just to enjoy being one.
Did this one stay with you?
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