I moved out of the Brooklyn apartment a few weeks ago. I stayed sort of under the radar, I think J was the only person I saw while I was in town. It was weird to go back, after I had already said goodbye to everyone. And even weeks later it hasn’t really hit me that I don’t live there anymore. It doesn’t feel like the end of anything, which, maybe that’s a sign that it isn’t the end. We’ll have to see what the next year brings.
My room looks much smaller without furniture in it. It’s hard to look at it so empty and bare. I took a few photos, and then just left, without any fanfare. It felt just like deciding to leave to go run errands, not like I was abandoning my home. J came to the door to see me off. It’s hard leaving him and the people in that apartment, the community we had in the city. It was a really magical two years.
I’ve been feeling really mellow since I moved out. Not depressed, just chill and steady.
Out here, work continues. I haven’t been updating this much because there just hasn’t been much to say. We’re still cleaning things, we’re still fixing things. Progress is being made, but not in a sense that would mean anything to people who don’t live here. We cleaned 34 guest rooms last weekend! And all the staff housing spaces!
Groups of volunteers come out for the weekends; managing them is my job. They’re a really cool, special group of people who come out here for one weekend and clean and fix and build right along with us. Who knows why they choose to do this, but they’re amazing folks and we couldn’t open the hotel every year without them.
I’ve also been working on putting together my financial aid documentation for school next year. I have to finish that before I can start work on my visa. I’m learning new respect for my parents, who handled all this paperwork when I was in college. “Come sign this,” they’d say, and that was all I saw. Now I’m making my own way through the world of Stafford loans and entrance interviews, Master Promissory Notes and Estimated Family Contributions, where family this time means just me.
My parents also did the lion’s share of moving me out of my apartment. I packed everything up, but they came to help me load it into a trailer and they drove it home and unloaded everything. Home.
I don’t know what my address is anymore. All my applications had my Brooklyn address on them, but the financial aid papers have my parents’ home address, and the school has my work address to get in touch with me out here. So either I live in many places, or I’m homeless. My community here is unfazed. “You’re not homeless, you just live here now.”
This weekend I move into my summer bedroom. For the past two weeks I’ve been staying in a small room with a girl named Karina, with not nearly enough space for all our stuff. This weekend, though, we’ll move into the hotel. I’m in the same room I had last year, a light and sunny single. It has a south-facing window with a view of the lighthouse. I’m happy to be back. Not homeless after all.
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