I've got another week in this apartment.
Even though I am moving to a place I would consider an upgrade in most ways (except for the kitchen--I'm taking one for the team here), I still feel a lot of connection to this place.
After all, it was my first apartment all to myself. No one else's. I think I've never grown so much as I have in the last 16 months and I did all that here. In my little piece of rented land. From relationships to cycling, from music to the chopping block, I've done a lot, learned a lot and gleaned an awful lot more from myself than I expected.
I was supposed to only be in Nashville for six months. Here I am at D-Day + 10 months. To think, that number will only double as I have agreed to stay in this lab for another year.
For the longest time I questioned whether taking the other path out of college (not med school, etc) was a mistake and that maybe I should have just gone on and gotten my life on track. I wonder if perhaps I would have done the template, graduated Berea, taken a few weeks off then entered into summer at a medical school where I would be sufficiently happy (and likely miserable all at the same time).
Then I realize what this little apartment has seen me go through by me taking this other path. I learned how to be a teacher and a mentor--something I think is the duty of all of us to become, I learned science in a way I never understood, I found love--though finite those nine months were some of my best, I finally took time to focus on passions I had--playing music, getting into cycling, and the most recent and most heart-beat skipping, I spent the second half of my summer in Maine and found something there that I still can't shake out of my mind (but that's almost certainly because that's the last thing I want to do).
Despite the fact that everything moves at break neck speed, feeling like the days fall like dominoes and trying to keep up is tiresome, there are some things that stay put and wait for you at all times.
I'll miss this apartment, this home. But I'm going to wood floors. Sorry apartment, I hope we can still be friends.
To new nests, apple cider, and that feeling when your heart skips a beat because of your dropping in to say "hi" through my phone.
