Thursday, June 08, 2006
Feng Shui, Friends and Apartment Woes
I've felt more Chinese in the last six hours than I have in the last three years.
Everything with the living situation really just came to a head today. We realized that we had to make a decision and it came down to ME having to make that decision because by some curse of circumstance, I'm the person that my roommates are both inadvertently tied to in some way.
And so to distill the whole dilemma into an easily-digestible bite-sized chunk, here were the two options I was faced with:
1. Move to 967 Patterson... and get to live with Kara.
We found this apartment last weekend and my roommates loved it while I on the other hand was not so thrilled. Simply because it looks dirty and kinda ghetto from the outside. The last time we visited on Friday, there were beer cans strewn all over the place, and I just didn't like the feel of it. It didn't help that the apartment they were showing us was a boys apartment, and boys are just naturally dirtier. So the place itself was a piece of shit. But my roommates somehow identified "potential" amidst the general unkempt look of the place. Don't ask how, I don't know.
But basically this place is a three-bedroom, one bathroom, with a huge living area. The couple of things I don't like about it are: a. The only way to get to the only bathroom in the place is to go through either one of the two bedrooms that sandwich it.
b. The back bedroom— and the one that I would probably take— is right behind the kitchen, and my mom got it into my head that having your bed behind the kitchen wall is bad fengshui.
Here's the kicker though, I'm not even into fengshui. I mean, I don't disbelieve it, but I wouldn't exactly call myself a believer either.
But the whole goddamn fengshui angle really factored into my decision today.
The only other option we had was to:
2. Move to 202, which means I get to stay in this building but we move to the apartment downstairs.
The catch to this is that it'd just be me and Sully. Kara would have to find somewhere else to live. And the prospect of breaking up what I've identified as the most awesome living situation that I've ever had hurt. I didn't want to have to exclude Kara from our plans for next year. Because when all's said and done, I love that girl like a sister. It just didn't feel right to cut her out just because I wanted to stay here.
But on the other hand, I've grown so attached to this apartment that I'm beginning to buy into what my mother's been saying for the last couple of days— that the apartment 'agrees with me.'
I mean think about it. The last couple of years have been absolutely amazing. I've had such good fortune in just about every aspect of my life. And maybe it is because of the apartment, or maybe it isn't. Whatever it is, this place is home to me, and it's just hard to have to entertain the idea of moving... especially if it's to a place where I'm not that's into.
Still, weighing it like that in my head made me feel almost silly. I just couldn't fully justify ditching out on my roommate for the sake of a vague, abstract concept of possible, hypothetical 'luck' associated with this apartment. I just couldn't do it. As much as I love this apartment, I feel like a total scumbag picking the vague, hypothetical concept of possible 'luck' over Kara, who is one of my best friends here.
Over the last year, Kara, Sully and I have become practically family. And at the point this afternoon when I made the decision and said "Let's do it, let's go put in applications for 967 Patterson" I couldn't justify cutting Kara off from us for next year. I didn't think I'd be able to live with myself or the decision.
I hate how I'm flip flopping back and forth on this subject so much. I spent most of yesterday almost content with the idea that we'd decided to move downstairs, and so be it.
Then last night, the three of us were sitting in Sully's room, just talking, just like we always do. Yet another random late-night conversation in which we just hang out and chat about everything and nothing. And just sitting there and realizing that this might be our last couple of weeks as roommates made me want to cry. Because we've had a good year. There's no doubting that. We've had a great year. And as much as I like to believe that this apartment has magical qualities, a lot of that good definitely stems from the fact that the living situation was amazing. I was happy. Coming home felt like home you know?
And that was really what finally tipped the tables and made me decide to go in on the three-bedroom with the two of them this afternoon. In my friendships with people, I pride loyalty above all else. And when it came down to it, I couldn't justify ditching out on Kara just to stay in my apartment block. I couldn't do it.
It doesn't mean I'm happy about the decision. I still have SO many misgivings about the apartment that we'll have to call 'home' next year.
In fact I can't say I'm even at peace with myself right now. But it just felt like the right thing to do you know?
Everything with the living situation really just came to a head today. We realized that we had to make a decision and it came down to ME having to make that decision because by some curse of circumstance, I'm the person that my roommates are both inadvertently tied to in some way.
And so to distill the whole dilemma into an easily-digestible bite-sized chunk, here were the two options I was faced with:
1. Move to 967 Patterson... and get to live with Kara.
We found this apartment last weekend and my roommates loved it while I on the other hand was not so thrilled. Simply because it looks dirty and kinda ghetto from the outside. The last time we visited on Friday, there were beer cans strewn all over the place, and I just didn't like the feel of it. It didn't help that the apartment they were showing us was a boys apartment, and boys are just naturally dirtier. So the place itself was a piece of shit. But my roommates somehow identified "potential" amidst the general unkempt look of the place. Don't ask how, I don't know.
But basically this place is a three-bedroom, one bathroom, with a huge living area. The couple of things I don't like about it are: a. The only way to get to the only bathroom in the place is to go through either one of the two bedrooms that sandwich it.
b. The back bedroom— and the one that I would probably take— is right behind the kitchen, and my mom got it into my head that having your bed behind the kitchen wall is bad fengshui.
Here's the kicker though, I'm not even into fengshui. I mean, I don't disbelieve it, but I wouldn't exactly call myself a believer either.
But the whole goddamn fengshui angle really factored into my decision today.
The only other option we had was to:
2. Move to 202, which means I get to stay in this building but we move to the apartment downstairs.
The catch to this is that it'd just be me and Sully. Kara would have to find somewhere else to live. And the prospect of breaking up what I've identified as the most awesome living situation that I've ever had hurt. I didn't want to have to exclude Kara from our plans for next year. Because when all's said and done, I love that girl like a sister. It just didn't feel right to cut her out just because I wanted to stay here.
But on the other hand, I've grown so attached to this apartment that I'm beginning to buy into what my mother's been saying for the last couple of days— that the apartment 'agrees with me.'
I mean think about it. The last couple of years have been absolutely amazing. I've had such good fortune in just about every aspect of my life. And maybe it is because of the apartment, or maybe it isn't. Whatever it is, this place is home to me, and it's just hard to have to entertain the idea of moving... especially if it's to a place where I'm not that's into.
Still, weighing it like that in my head made me feel almost silly. I just couldn't fully justify ditching out on my roommate for the sake of a vague, abstract concept of possible, hypothetical 'luck' associated with this apartment. I just couldn't do it. As much as I love this apartment, I feel like a total scumbag picking the vague, hypothetical concept of possible 'luck' over Kara, who is one of my best friends here.
Over the last year, Kara, Sully and I have become practically family. And at the point this afternoon when I made the decision and said "Let's do it, let's go put in applications for 967 Patterson" I couldn't justify cutting Kara off from us for next year. I didn't think I'd be able to live with myself or the decision.
I hate how I'm flip flopping back and forth on this subject so much. I spent most of yesterday almost content with the idea that we'd decided to move downstairs, and so be it.
Then last night, the three of us were sitting in Sully's room, just talking, just like we always do. Yet another random late-night conversation in which we just hang out and chat about everything and nothing. And just sitting there and realizing that this might be our last couple of weeks as roommates made me want to cry. Because we've had a good year. There's no doubting that. We've had a great year. And as much as I like to believe that this apartment has magical qualities, a lot of that good definitely stems from the fact that the living situation was amazing. I was happy. Coming home felt like home you know?
And that was really what finally tipped the tables and made me decide to go in on the three-bedroom with the two of them this afternoon. In my friendships with people, I pride loyalty above all else. And when it came down to it, I couldn't justify ditching out on Kara just to stay in my apartment block. I couldn't do it.
It doesn't mean I'm happy about the decision. I still have SO many misgivings about the apartment that we'll have to call 'home' next year.
In fact I can't say I'm even at peace with myself right now. But it just felt like the right thing to do you know?
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