Highland Square Vacancy

Last night, I moved my last possession out of my Akron apartment.

I spent the past two evenings (with lots of help from my mom) aggressively cleaning everything, and it honestly felt like I would never actually get everything out of there. Cleaning and emptying my apartment has been my biggest stress for the past month. Once I started hard-core packing, it seemed like stuff would just keep reappearing. I'd open a cabinet and there'd still be pots and pans in it... I'd open a closet door and there'd still be a couple of shirts hanging in it. And I'd throw my hands up in the air in frustration like, "I'll deal with that later." Which is probably why stuff wasn't getting packed in the first place.

The whole packing and moving process was just a general pain in my rump. Perhaps because I had been packing so long, I just couldn't wait to be done with it all. But tonight, after I wiped the last counter and washed the last window, I started vacuuming the empty rooms. And that is when it hit me: I don't live here anymore.

The cute little neighborhood of Highland Square has been my home for four and a half years. It was the first apartment I ever had that was just mine. I stood in my empty living room and looked around, picturing it as it was just a couple of weeks ago, as it was every night when I came home from work and curled up on the couch to relax. I looked around at all the holes in the walls, recalling each picture or piece of art that had been hanging there. There were impressions in the carpet where all my furniture sat, and coffee stains from multiple spillings resulting from multiple attacks by my ferocious cat on the walk from the kitchen to the couch.

Then I started remembering certain times I had there, and certain people that had visited. My grandma had come over a few times when she was still alive, and I could picture her sitting on the floor, playing with Harley and smiling up at me. I spent many summer evenings on my balcony, watching the sunset and the traffic pass by through the intersection below. I walked down the street often to my favorite little coffee shop, and met friends for dinner at the nearby restaurants. 

I cried here a lot, and laughed. I came home from good days and bad, and Harley was always here waiting for me, running around the corner whenever I unlocked the door. Now we're venturing out to find a new home and make some new memories. As anxious as I've been to leave this apartment, it was still overwhelming to turn the lights off and close the door, because similarly I knew I was closing another chapter in my life.

Before leaving, I looked around the empty kitchen, thinking, "What did I do? What am I doing?!" The change hadn't hit me yet as hard as it did in that moment. It was a moment of panic, when I thought, "Should I move everything back in? Just as it was?" It was my fear of change talking as I realized I was leaving the most comfortable space I could be in -- my safe haven, my home. I'm going to be surrounded by many uncomfortable places in the coming months, and it'll take a bit of time for a new city to feel like a place where I belong. 

That won't change one thing about Akron, though. It will always be where I come from, and where I grew up. It'll be the place where my friends are, where my family lives, and where my heart is. And the best part is that it'll never be too far away, waiting to welcome me back whenever I feel like I need to visit my home.