Update on the building/neighbor situation: there is no update.
There haven’t been any problems since then, and I’m having similar feelings to looking at a credit card statement. I know I should, but I don’t wanna! I need to go speak to security or management or someone and just alert them to this issue. So that is on the list for this week.
However, I was walking down the street by my building, and I saw that THAT neighbor was walking towards me. Ready, set, hold head up high! And then, he crossed the street to the other side! Ha HA! The big man is afraid of me. Rar!
Well, yesterday I checked out my very first place. It was very exciting. I looked at a house. a HOUSE. in Bklyn. I loved it immediately. The housemates were great. I got the “good people” vibe immediately. I took a walk in the tree-lined streets and checked out the neighborhood. Full of cheap organic grocery stores, and a very up-and-coming-but-not-overdeveloped-by-real-estate-people-or-whoever-is-in-charge-of-that feel.
My friend Maia were talking about this term that Martha Beck uses: the essential self. In Martha’s words, (from Finding Your Own North Star):
Your essential self formed before you were born, and it will remain until you’ve shuffled off your mortal coil. It’s the personality you got from your genes: your characteristic desires, preferences, emotional reactions and involuntary physiological responses, bound together by an overall sense of identity. It would be the same whether you’d been raised in France, China, or Brazil, by beggars or millionaires. It’s the basic you, stripped of options and special features. It is “essential” in two ways: first, it is the essence of your personality, and second, you absolutely need it to find your North Star.
I think that the theme of this past year has been trying to connect with my essential self. Basically every answer is right there within you, if you can connect to that place! Shopping is easier. On Friday I was searching for my Halloween outfit. I had the green face paint and ugly teeth for the “ugly” part of my ugly monster. Now I needed the dress: I was open to being an ugly party monster, a sexy ugly monster, or a ugly housewife monster. I tried on dress after dress after dress.
I’m getting better at not going, “I don’t know… Do I like it? What do you think? Is it okay?” in most areas of my life. If you even have to ask that question, you have the answer! If you don’t know, I think the answer is no. Especially in shopping. I think you know immediately if you like an outfit. But, we all want to just find the stinkin outfit and move on with our life. Or find the stinkin job, find the stinkin apartment, find the stinkin mate! So we try and talk ourselves into liking one thing or another. But it saves money and time to just say: “Yes, there are things I like about this dress. But I do not feel awesome in it. Goodbye, dress!” “Yes, this boy is cute, but I do not feel awesome with this boy. Goodbye, boy!” So, I tried on many dresses that almost worked but did not feel awesome. (This could also apply to boys.) So I did not waste $40. Then, I passed by this store PeachFrog. They sell overstock clothing. Quality, nice things! I tried on a faux leather jacket that I loved immediately. Because I had not wasted $40 on a dress I didn’t love, I now opted to buy a $25 jacket I DID LOVE.
(Side note: Should I be shopping right now? I need a new phone and a new apartment. Well, now I have a cute jacket to wear while shopping. Stay warm, it’s flu season!)
So, l have been talking myself into staying in this apartment for a while. There are things I love about this apartment. I have an amazing bathroom. Like, I could rent it out. I absolutely love the bathroom. But, the apartment does not make me feel awesome. I feel cramped and a little crazy and usually need several walks outside during my days off. There are things I love about my neighborhood. Hell’s Kitchen is so close. Walks on the West Side Highway. Close proximity to EVERYTHING. And I think, if I moved, would I be woken up by roommates? Ha. Well, I am woken up by strangers I do not live with. So, there’s that. And to live in a NEIGHBORHOOD, with normal people? To not have to wade through tourists day in, day out? What a dream!
When I looked at this Brooklyn neighborhood, I immediately loved it. My essential self felt completely at ease walking through there, so far away from the condensed streets of Times Square. As I walked home towards my building yesterday, before I even saw the dreaded neighbor, I began to get the CRUNCHIES! (The crunchy feeling in the chest. When the essential self is saying “ME NO LIKEY!”)
Getting into a new living situation is a bigger decision that a $25 jacket. But I know this: what I have right now does not work. And there are a lot of places out there that give me the opposite of the crunchies: the butterflies in the chest!
Oh, and the dress situation: I wore a dress I already had that I’d forgotten about. It was perfect! If only I had my dream apartment stuck in my dresser somewhere.
