my valentine: an unconventional love story

falling in love.

it happens so quickly, always unexpected, not necessarily convenient, and regardless of what other obligations or commitments might be in your life. it just happens when it's supposed to and there is not much one can do about it but surrender to the truth of it, surrender to the romance of it. just plain old, surrender.

so let me tell you about how i fell in love yesterday.

the story starts a week ago when i thought i had an apartment in my pocket but wanted to check out the market for a day or two more while i thought it was safe to hold on to this other one. the apartment manager hadn't had any other serious prospectives and wasn't showing it again until thursday. the apartment was pretty good. had the right elements even if it was a bit small and quirky in weird places. okay, not enough light in the bedroom, but i thought i could live with it all. i held off on putting the application in because i just needed to make sure there wasn't anything better out there. one of the few i looked at during the mad search to find something better before putting my application in was a basement apartment with ceiling clearance that would have brushed my hair if my hair had any body to speak of. it was immediately apparent to myself and the lovely landlady, roberta, that this would not be a good fit. we smiled, wished each other luck and parted ways.

i emailed the manager about the pretty good apartment the next day, but unexpectedly, someone had brought in an application and deposit the day before. i was momentarily devastated, what had i done??? but quickly bounced back hearing myself say there is better out there.

i thought i found two that were the best i could do in my budget this friday and spent about 45 minutes agonizing over the decision between them. you know the ending, it was in my last blog post: i went with the prettier one. the one without the gas stove and the horrible parking situation, but that had the awesome manager, all the right details in all the right places, and was something i could live with. i signed the application and handed over two checks. one of them was for $600 and forfeit if i withdrew my application.

i went home that night with my new apartment securely in my grasp, i wrote up a blog entry about it and then something weird happened: i opened up the craigslist apartment search page.

it was not something done automatically out of a habit born from days of endless apartment searching, because as i did it, a very clear voice in my head cautioned with foreboding: nathania......what are you doing? and i shook my head in disbelief as i saw that earlier in the evening the perfect apartment had been advertised while i was out humming and hawing between two that now seem so obviously not the right place. i coached myself to sleep that night with reassurances that this was for a reason. i convinced myself it's always the dress you don't try on that's perfect and i resigned to live up to my word and sleep in the bed i made for myself.

then i woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. this wouldn't do – i had to at least see it. see the flaws that i can't see in the photos, see the ugly bits, the incompatible bits, the things that wouldn't be as good as the one i had secured with 600 hard-earned dollars. so i called my mom {who, living in austria, is usually available for consultations during sleepless nights}, we talked it through and i decided to do just that.

on the way to the building for my 3:30 appointment, i repeated the mantra whatever comes up i can handle it. whatever comes up i can handle it. whatever comes up i can handle it. and that's when i realized that i was perfectly willing to give up the $600 if this really was the perfect place. that a loss of $50 a month for an extra 50 square feet, a gas stove, better location and who knows what other perfections was manageable and that all would be well. but as i walked up to the apartment and called the manager, i got sincere apologies that he had missed getting me the message that the apartment had already been rented earlier that day.

not meant to be i guess.

again, i coached myself to be okay with the decision i had made, but every time someone congratulated me on my new place, i felt like the woman engaged to the wrong man. this isn't right. i'm not ecstatic. i was happy to have a home again, happy it was nice enough, but i was not in love and suddenly that seemed like a grievous thing.

the next morning, snuggled into the warmth of blankets and a slow sunday morning, i got a call from a number i didn't recognize. usually that means it's a photography client and usually i let it go if i'm still in the late stages of waking up. but today i didn't. today the marching orders in my head said answer the phone. so i did. and surprises of surprises, it was roberta, the lovely landlady from a week ago. she had saved my number just in case something she thought might be more appropriate opened up and that just in case happened.

she had an apartment in madison valley {nearby to where i was currently housesitting} and thought i might like to come and see it. ceiling height would not be an issue, she reassured me, because the apartment has high ceilings and hardwood floors and a clawfoot tub and built in shelves and closets galore. and then i asked her how many square feet it is {nearly 1000}. then i asked her much it was {and she brought it down $100 a month for me}. and then i asked her where it was because now i was quite curious. she explained the intersection, explained where it sat on the corner and then, with a big smile on my face, i told her where i was at the moment: in the bottom floor of the very same building, housesitting for one of her current tenants. we had a good laugh. she adores my friend, thinks it's a fine reference for me that he'd trust me to watch his place and so we arranged to meet up so she can show me the place later that day.

i was glad a photo shoot in everett prevented me from getting there exactly on time allowing other more enthusiastic folks the chance to snap it up. i still had one foot out the door because there was the nuances of moving into the same building as a very good friend, the drawback of living 2 miles from work instead of 1, and of course, there was my $600 in the hands of another apartment manager who had gone out of his way for me, twice.

i made it back from my appointment at the end of the two hour showing appointment and she took me inside.

first, there was the kitchen. not stunning in the fridge department {i actually thought okay good, this isn't perfect from head to toe}, but then i noticed a gas stove and original glass doors on the beautiful caramel-colored cabinet that stretched across one length of the room. my head was officially turned as we walked into the room that is the hub of the apartment. it's the room that has a door to the bathroom, a door to the bedroom, a door to the living space, and then a whole wall of doors and drawers of matching caramel-colored cabinet that runs the width of the room. she showed me the claw foot tub {...and not the prettiest bathroom, though nothing is screaming at me in aesthetic agony}. and while the bedroom has carpet and annoyingly spaced windows, it's large and has potential {my bed could go there or maybe there...as my foot left outside the door gently lifted itself up and i stepped all the way inside the possibility of living here}.

we went back into the middle room, the hallway of sorts, and i said roberta, what are you doing to me?! and she replied with a smile: wait, you haven't seen the best part yet. and whether or not there was a dramatic pause after she pushed open the door to the main space, there certainly is a moment in my memory, a frame in my head for what happened next.

i see the space on the other side.

the space.

this space.

the high ceilings. the huge, formal-sized dining room {more than twice the size of my last dining room}. the windows. the fireplace. the lead-glass paned bookshelves gently sectioning off the living room from the dining room. the expanse of wood flooring. the caramel-colored woodwork carrying in from the kitchen and hallway.

the space.

the space.

the space.

i walked in and was speechless. awestruck. happy and sad all at once.

i repeated: roberta, what are you doing to me?!?! and she replied: a woman and a couple came through here already today and this is the first time i can recall in the history of renting this apartment that the first person who saw it didn't take it. i think it's for you.

i shook my head. i wrestled inside. my friend, his private nature and my desire to let him have his space. that $600....

i didn't sleep last night. i couldn't. i tried. i closed my eyes. i tossed. i turned. i repeatedly checked my email waiting to get blessings from afar. i played all the scrabble moves i could on my phone. i read. i rehearsed what i would say to that other manager to convince him to give me back my $600 check. i read some more. i drank warm almond milk with agave around 1am and again around 5. and somewhere in the fog of the early hours of the morning, i decided that no matter what, i had to have it.

sleep finally caught up with me at 6am and at 7:30 the gentle pinging of my phone lead to a skype call and the green flag from my friend who told me to do what my heart tells me. then at 8:15am i called roberta and told her the news she already knew {i sent her a charming set of emails at 10pm, 12am and 4am last night tracking my decision making – we had a good laugh about them}. at 9am i was at the door of the other manager's apartment, preparing to beg for forgiveness and was met with a disappointed smile but an outstretched hand with my two checks he was returning to me before i even could ask. and then by 10am, a mere 24 hours after that first call from roberta, i arrived at her house to write a new deposit check and set in motion that little dance that will unite me with my new, true love.

of course later, after the first rush, there were the questions. there will always be those questions: will i really be okay with the funky fridge and the carpet in the bedroom? was it really as pretty and as big as i remember? is this really worth all the trouble?

and then there is the steady truth of it all. the resonance. the relationship of years spanning out before me {i wanted a space i wouldn't easily outgrow, even when i am eventually ready to live with someone again}. when i got to go back and visit a little while tonight, i paused at the bottom of the stairs, worried i'd glorified it too much. worried i'd be disappointed.

but this is what greeted me and i know now i have nothing to worry about. surrender, nathania. surrender and breathe. it was all so perfectly aligned, down to the fact that my stuff just happens to be in storage a block and a half away. and even its imperfections, like any good relationship, are just another part of its charm:

those are window seats by the window -- storage underneath the lids

& you can't see the walk-in closet off to the left that has even more storage

formal dining table i have the option to buy for $200 or so with the chairs.

 the closet in the middle of the apt hub.

did i mention the working fireplace?