Moving-IN

I moved across the country with no idea where I was going to live. I had decided to take a year off from school in New York to work and live with my boyfriend Chris, in Northampton Massachusetts while he attended Hampshire College. An eclectic mix of old hippies, crunchy-granola outdoorsy types and college students make up the area's population. The town's unique charm won me over and I was excited to live in a totally different environment compared to my urban, west coast home town. But when we left Seattle I had not found an apartment yet.


My stress was only magnified by the intensity of our road trip. Four of my closest friends and I had decided to drive out east together. 3 boys, 3 cars 2 girls, and no planning made the trip quite tense! We were all excited about the trip and looking forward to exploring parts of America we had never seen before. But unrest quickly arose as we fought over how or IF to plan the trip at all. My best friend Kyra and I argued we should have a rough plan/time-line with places to stop for the night figured out ahead of time. Whereas the boys, who imagined some Kerouac-esc spontaneous journey felt it was unnecessary. I was half won over by their idealism and we left Seattle with no plan or even a concrete route.

Despite the stress of driving 12 hours a day with no idea were we would end up that night, we did have some good times. We began to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. One night outside of Fargo, North Dakota at the creepiest campsite I’ve ever stayed at, Kyra and I found teeth in the bathroom sink…meth country is a scary place.

Anyway, as we all slowly split off taking different highways to different colleges, Chris and I were left alone to think about the scary reality that faced us. We were going to live together, a huge step in our relationship, but where were we going to live?

When Chris and I first saw the place it was filthy. It smelled really bad. The rent was $795, more than I wanted to pay but the location was great, only a couple blocks from downtown. Ignoring the filth and smell the place had real potential. Hardwood floors, lots of windows, a front and back porch, a yard, and beautiful old fixtures like the kitchen sink, and it was literally the first place we saw. I was impatient to move in. We had been staying at a campsite about 30 minutes away from town. It was an understatement to say I was sick of camping. So within a week I had signed a lease.

When September 1st (our move-in day) came around we were nervous about the state of the apartment. But to our surprise the tenant had left the place reasonably clean. I, being the OCD freak that I am, of course scrubbed the whole place down before I would even allow Chris to unload the car. After we unloaded the car, Chris and I went to Sleepy’s where I dropped $500 on the cheapest, yet most comfortable mattress they carried. I drive a prius and the hilarious scene of Chris and I trying to tie down a queen size mattress to the roof of my car in 90-degree heat made us both laugh.

That night the only furniture in the house was our mattress. All our belongings that we had, had to squeeze into the car only took up a small corner of the living room. We opened a bottle of Champaign and toasted to our first place.