After 28 Years, I’m Moving Out of My Apartment

The Lord works in mysterious ways. It's a familiar old saying and possibly a cliche. But, man, is it ever accurate.

I lived in my parents' house until I was 26 years old. In the spring of 1992, I was feeling a little restless living in the back bedroom. One day, while watching TV with my parents in their family room, I got into a pretty heated argument with my dad. That is something that had NEVER happened before. I felt terrible and apologized.

But because of that confrontation, I decided it was time to move on and get a place of my own. And so I did.

I moved into that little apartment behind Wesleyan Park Plaza at the end of May in 1992 and a month later made one of the dumbest mistakes I'd ever made up to that point. One month after moving in, I went to Atlanta to visit some friends of mine for the weekend and when I came back, I realized I had left my front door unlocked. Fortunately--VERY fortunately--nothing had been stolen, but I sat on the bed and stewed about it for a good while.

You know, while I am more than ready to move away from my tiny apartment and into a house, I have to admit to being a little sentimental, due to all that happened to me while I was there.

For example, since I was a kid and started collecting souvenir pennants from the states I visited, I've always had the goal of visiting all 50 of them. Before 1992, I'd only visited 25. Since then, I've added 20.

Three of four surgeries I've undergone (two arthroscopic knee surgeries and Lasik eye surgery) occurred while I was there.

In 2005, I dressed for my dad's funeral in my bedroom and had no idea how I was feeling that day. My grandparents had all passed by that time, but this was the first really huge milestone death in my family. And the weirdness and newness of it all--that strange realization that my dad was actually gone--just felt so unusual. I sat on my bed for two hours just thinking about what an enormous change in my life that was going to be.

I've been a hoarder in that apartment. That's right. It was an absolute junk heap at one time. It was awful. And then, one day, it hit me like a ton of bricks that this was no way to live and rectified the situation. Oh, I'm still a slob. But not to the degree I was. And I'll be even less of one when I move into the house.

I've experienced an enormous amount of personal growth and an awakening to who I really am and that's led me to develop more and more friendships in the last couple of years. I've made friends in the past 18 months who will be my friends until the day I die. It's an enormous blessing. And, in fact, one of those friends will be my roommate.

But with that awakening came the realization that it was time to quit "hiding." Oh, I wasn't a hermit. See, I was never much of a homebody and would always visit friends or family. It was always more interesting for me to go out and be out. And I enjoy my little road trips. But so often, they happen because I want to go somewhere and just enjoy being outside. I couldn't do that at the apartment because there was no yard. But, mainly, I felt like I was "protecting" myself. I no longer feel the need to do that.

You know, it's funny. Over the years, the times I felt MOST irritated by living in such a small space were the times I'd watch basketball or football on TV. Somehow it didn't feel right to watch games in such a small, cramped space. Now I won't have to.

Now, I won't have or NEED to do a LOT of things anymore.

There are many reasons why people move. For me, this is an important step in my continuing growth as this person who gets to inhabit this body.

I'm looking forward to seeing how "the other half" lives, so to speak.

It's time.