She got a new apartment, it's out on the escarpment; and in the glove compartment are my songs.

So, I have an apartment.  I'm sure I've mentioned this before.  I will, eventually, invite you all over for a housewarming party.  I'm hopeful that this will happen before the end of the year.  Probably.  Okay, so I'm not that hopeful.  I'd love for you all to come over now but I don't have blinds, or curtains, or a lot of furniture for people to sit on.  I don't have art on the walls or a well organized kitchen.  It's embarrassing. 

See, when I lived with Andrew I had a bunch of stuff.  I bought tons of crap for the house to make it organized, and pretty, and ours.  I thought that if I put enough stuff in it, he would stop seeing it as his, and start thinking of it as ours.  That he would see that I could make him a home.  That it would make him want to be with me.  It was never any of those things, and I (obviously) didn't accomplish any of those goals, and now I regret all the money I spent trying to make it a home when I was the only one committed to that endeavour.  But that's kind of besides the point.  The point is, I have an apartment.  It is all mine.  I can paint it any colour I want and buy any furniture I want cook whatever I want in it.  (Or I could cook whatever I wanted if I didn't have an Easy Bake Oven for a stove.  The thing is hobbit sized, I swear.)  And the bitch of it is, now that I have that freedom, I have no idea what I want to do with it.  The whole place is a blank canvas I'm afraid to fuck up.  Can't decide if I want to paint, where I want to hang my art, or where to store my big mixing bowls.  But I'll figure it out eventually.  And then I'll just do it.  Because I want to.  And because I can.

I was always very afraid to live on my own before.  In fact, when my parents used to leave me alone for the summer to go to the trailer, I'd go and stay with Andrew so the big bad boogey man wouldn't eat me in the night.  And now they've probably read that and shaken their heads in a disappointed fashion.  Or looked at each other and exclaimed, "I knew it!"  Or maybe they won't read my blog.  Yeah, that's probably what's going to happen.  I continue to be pretty scared sometimes.  Especially since watching Paranormal Activity and having a conversation with a friend about how that would work in an apartment building.  And because I have an over active imagination.  I should REALLY know better by now, but here we are. 

I know I've talked before about my #grownupgoldstar list.  I was able to check the apartment off before I knew it was on the list though.  I've never felt so confident in my own survival skillz before.  I'm sure I'll hit a snag at some point, but there is a very simple joy that hits me sometimes when I think about how I'm not relying on anybody else to live.  I pay all my bills and chip away at my credit card debt just like a real grown up.  And I make plans with people and carry them out.  I come and go as I please.  I've never felt this kind of freedom before and I wouldn't trade it for the world.