This coming Saturday, Chris and I will be moving out of our Middle Street apartment. Our landlord decided to sell the house, so for the past few weeks we (well, mostly Chris) have been hustling to find a new place. We're going to be moving about 20 minutes south, two towns over from where we are now in Portsmouth. We're moving into the middle unit of a tri-plex in a small town; we'll be across from a large park with walking trails and have a yard!
We are excited to move. A spare bedroom! Two parking spots! A yard! A full size kitchen! Laundry hookups! But, this also feels a little sad. This chapter is closing. I have loved every minute in this cramped little apartment.
Chris moved into this apartment in June of 2018, just a week before we met. It was his first apartment without roommates. I came over for the first time sometime in early July. He had two beach chairs set up in the living room, and I helped him put an AC in the window before we left for our third date.
This apartment is an attic one-bedroom, on top of an older house about a 10-minute walk from downtown. All the walls have slanted ceilings. In the bathroom, the shower is built into the slanted ceiling, and the shower rod sits so low that you can see Chris' shoulders above the curtain. You enter the apartment through a galley kitchen, and directly across from the front door is the bathroom. From there you cross into a little hallway, with the steps down into the main unit cutting up through the floor. On one side of this hallway is our bedroom, and on the other side is the living room. There is a very long, angled closet in the hallway, which we sarcastically called the shed. We keep the pet food and camping supplies and paint cans and tools in there. We've called it the shed so often, though, that now we call it that unironically to everyone, which is confusing.
The rooms are choppy and none of the doorways flow into each other, which makes it horrible to cool down in the summer. Attics are always so, so hot. To get up to our apartment, there's a huge outdoor staircase that ends in a little landing right outside our door. We spent a silly amount of time on that little, maybe 3x3, landing. We squeezed a tiny grill out there. Last summer during quarantine, I had flowers and veggies going up and down the stairs. The landing is Bear's favorite spot to perch, and every day when I leave he gives me kisses through the slats.
Sometime in that first year, we had some of Chris' friends come over and I made homemade buffalo chicken dip. We dropped it directly on the newly-installed carpet, of course. We cleaned it up, and I scrubbed and scrubbed the spot with baking soda to get the stain out. Finally, Chris asked how I was planning to get the baking soda out of the carpet. "I'll just vacuum it!" I said, and that's how I learned that Chris didn't own a vacuum, even though he'd been living there for months.
Of course, this apartment was Chris'. But I took it as mine well before moving in. I had a part-time coffee shop job at the time, and in between those shifts and coaching I'd often hang out at his apartment even when he was at work. He got me a very ugly dresser from the side of the road, that had two drawers missing. Over time we acquired everything necessary to make cookies whenever I got the urge. We at a lot of frozen pizzas, often with the office in the background and a new bottle of wine from the store directly across the street. Other nights, we'd go out for a quick drink before dinner, then spring for an appetizer, and then go to a second place, and just eat appetizers the entire night.
I moved in in January of 2020. I cannot thank my lucky stars enough that we moved in together before covid. Moving in was a Big Deal. But, I don't know if I've ever felt something that felt so right, straight from the start. It was such an obvious decision. This apartment--and more importantly, Chris--were already home to me. I just needed to move all my stuff in.
Even so, that first year of living together was hard. It took us a long time to get in the rhythm of things. It took a long time for the apartment to feel like mine. But this year, we've really hit our stride. The apartment stays relatively clean. There is always food in the fridge. We make a good, decently healthy dinner most nights a week. We spend a lot of time chatting at the kitchen table, and a lot of time working quietly in separate rooms. Our favorite weekend activity this summer has been curling up on the couch with Bear, while I read a book and Chris plays videogames.
I love waving to the neighbor I park my car in front of at 5am every morning, while I head off to coach and he walks the dog. I love seeing Bear wait for me at the top of the steps. I love the light that streams in through the kitchen window at golden hour. I love how cozy the slanted ceilings make each room here.
This apartment was many firsts, for both of us: first dog, first place together, first time living with a significant other, first time buying furniture, first time trying 1000 new recipes. This was our quarantine home, my oasis on long workdays, where we fought and laughed and made plans and made up. This is where we lived when we got engaged. This has been the place we celebrated, and relaxed, been productive, and retreated when we were sad and tired.
I have a thousand more photos that are making me teary-eyed, but I'll close it here. Here is to new chapters! New things! Growing together! This new chapter feels very grown up. But I am sad to leave this tight, old apartment. This little place has given us so much space, and so much freedom. Middle Street, you've been the place both our adult lives really started. We'll miss you!
