A Sea of Cardboard in an Ocean of Joy...

Well, it has been nearly a week since five hunky (OK, two of them were hunky) movers carried all of my boxes up four flights of stairs to my fifth floor abode. And, as you can see, I am still in a sea of boxes with a path down the center leading from my bed to the front door and bathroom. But I am also in an ocean of joy being in New York.

Many people downsize at some point in their lives... Usually when they are over the age of 70, and are going from the big family home to a townhouse. For me, it was going from an already small 530 sq ft loft in Chicago to a space half that size. It is but one of the many compromises I've had to make to live in paradise, and thus far, I have zero regrets.

I have actually never had the privilege to live in a lot of space as an adult, with the one exception of my first apartment in Chicago. It was about 800 sq ft. But I didn't live there really. I slept there for one year, boxes mostly unpacked, until I bought my first condo. Otherwise it has mostly been apartments under 600 sq ft in Seattle, Portland, and Chicago. I have learned that (for me) location matters much more than space. After living in the center of all that is Seattle (Broadway and Pike) for much of the 90's (and never living more than a mile from downtown), I thought it would be nice to be more residential when I moved to Chicago. I started in Rogers Park because it was inexpensive, pretty, and quiet, yet still near the lake. As I noted above, I never actually lived there. The neighborhood was so very block by block, gang bangers on the corners, hoods smokin' weed at the playground... I knew early on that I didn't want to stay there, and I never finished unpacking.

One year to the day, after arriving in Chicago, I moved into my first condo. A studio on the 29th floor of Park Tower, a high-rise on the lake in Edgewater. I bought the place because at night, I could lay my head on my pillow and look out at the Sears Tower, seven miles to the south. I thought I would be happy there. But within a year, I began to feel restless, and cut off from the world by being in the hinterlands. My neighborhood was pretty... Pretty boring that is. I even began seriously contemplating leaving Chicago. Until one day, less than two years after moving into my condo, I saw an ad for a loft conversion in the Loop with prices I could afford. Less than two hours after seeing the ad, I had signed a contract, and then waited 15 months for the place to be completed.

Literally from day one in my loft on State Street, I knew that location was indeed what was most important to me. I fell back in love with Chicago again, and spent the next three and a half years celebrating all that Chicago is. That is when I began to be serious about my photography, and when I started my first photoblog "Looper". I was in a relationship, and my career was going well. By all outward appearances, my life was the best ever.

Well, appearances can be deceiving, and as good as everything was... I still yearned for a life in NYC. I had put my New York dreams on the back burner for the past 20+ years, and it wasn't until this past April when my world began shake all around me that I realized no matter how good I had it in Chicago, it still wasn't New York. No matter how good a location the Loop was, it wasn't Manhattan. It was the crumbling of my relationship, being downsized at my job, and the fact that I was past the age of forty that made me realize it was now or never. Initially the decision to come here was made with my ex boyfriend, but I also knew that our relationship could not stand the test of time, and moving here with him would have only worsened my dissatisfaction. I knew that it was time to go.

As I wrote in my Farewell to Chicago post, "But while I owe so very much to you (Chicago), all along you have known my secret. You were not alone in my urban love; there has been another…", the yearning had always been there, I had just chosen to ignore it.

Word of advice to all you youngsters out there... Live your dream... even if it takes a really long time to get there.

Well, I wasn't expecting this post to get quite this deep... I started out writing about living amongst a sea of boxes, and look what it has turned into...


OK, back on task... For the record, my 274 square feet isn't the smallest place I've ever lived (for six months in 1989, I had a basement apartment on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle that was all of about 200 sq. ft. and all of about $200 a month), and I am pretty confident that my next place, whenever and where ever that may be, will be bigger... But for now and the foreseeable future, this is what I have. A big part of how I will make this work is that this place has character. The fireplace, beamed ceilings, arched openings, casement windows, and herringbone laid oak floor all add up to character you don't often find in such a place.

But even at that, moving from my 530 sq ft loft in Chicago (which was a small place by most peoples standards) to a space half the size has presented a very long list of challenges. Not the least of which, what to do about my furniture. As I stated in a previous post, I was not able to bring my sofa, desk, bookcases, or my side tables to the new space. I am selling them off out of the storage locker over the next couple of weeks.

I have come to accept that it will be at least three months until I have "installed" myself into this tiny space (it will never really be completely finished, but I expect to be at least 80% of the way there by the end of the year). I have ordered a murphy bed from a company in Indiana and it will be here around Thanksgiving. I have planned out storage, storage, and more storage. I am getting rid of stuff that I really don't need with each garbage pick up day (no worries, garbage day is a scavengers payday here). I am mounting the LCD above the mantle on the fireplace. I am adding new bookshelves, and am searching for the right small sofa (love seat really). In the meantime, I will just have to accept that I will be living in a sea of boxes.

Fortunately for me, that sea of boxes is located in the best location I could dream of, and I can say that for the first time in more than a dozen years, a sense of joy is returning to my life.