Warmth in Winter

Everyone keeps asking me: "How are things with your new apartment?" "Good, of course," I'll reply, a little taken aback that they're asking. But then I remember, ah yes, of course they would be concerned…

Because I had such a lengthy transition period -- almost the all of December at various places, two weeks at my buddy's, three solo weeks in my new apartment -- it's difficult for me to recall the depths to which living in my former apartment had sunk by the end of last year. It's so night and day, in fact, that I am almost whitewashing my memory (as I so often do). Why dwell on the bad when I can relish the good?

When I walk towards my apartment I look to see if the lights are on. Instead of a stab of horror if they are, I get a warm glow. I know that when I open the door the two cats (whom I swear are more like dogs) will come running up to greet me. My roommates will pleasantly say hello, will be genuinely interested in sharing details about one another's' days. When I get a juicy email, I can run to Nora and tell her what it said; I can share hilarious YouTube videos with Jason; and any time I am on the couch I know if I invitingly pat the blanket I can have a purring Pig or Princess snuggling up.

It's a warm apartment, physically and emotionally. On Wednesday, when a girlfriend spent the night, Nora and I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to have a taste test of the vodkas we received at our housewarming. All seven of them. That's not something that would have happened at my old place. Another friend, from Wisconsin, confided that the reason she visited only twice the entire time I lived in my old place was because she never felt comfortable with my ex-roommates. A friend in Europe who'd stayed at my apartment confessed recently that she didn't like way they treated me… and that was at the start of '07, long before any eruptions of temper.

Much like a divorce, it was a long, slow process to the bitter, irrevocable breakup. Each time Nora and Jason do the tiniest things, from actually saying goodnight to putting my new bookshelf together while I'm at work, it reminds me of the vast gulf that existed between me and my ex-roommates by the end. Even from the beginning, though, it was different: when I moved in, they didn't make a spot for me in the kitchen; when I organized the drawers I was told I needed to ask for permission first; when I would walk out of the room my music would be turned off and replaced by theirs.

It's not just that Nora likes Celtic punk rock, too (even more than I), or that Jason doesn't even need to be asked to photograph the cat being cute. It's that although I don't own the dishes, I don't own the furniture, I don't own the cats, I still feel as if it's my apartment. My plants are appreciated (and, who knows, might someday get names like all of Nora's). I have my fairy magnets displayed on the fridge for the first time. And my grandmother's watercolors she did in art school in the 1930s are up, in pride of place in the dining room.

I'm sure that there are many things I do that are annoying, and that I will all too soon find out the irksome foibles Nora and Jason have. But for now, it's going fantastically, and I am dead certain it won't devolve to my getting asked to leave. I hope.