Long Hollow

It's a darling place, my son's girlfriend Kirby's first apartment. The wooden floor and vintage telephone niche give its age away, but it has held up better than most 50+-year-olds I know. Yes, it's obvious it's had a little "work" done…some nips and tucks and new cabinets…but nothing outlandish, fake or too youthful.

Hubby Tom and I got the grand tour last Sunday. We were invited to an inaugural lunch with members of Kirby's family and of course, son Tommy.

As I looked around, I couldn't help thinking, This place is a lot classier than my first apartment! Kirby's hand-me-down couch is, well, it's actually a couch rather than a piece of lawn furniture like I had. She even has a table in the dining area already! I started with TV trays…

In the fall of 1978, I was overwhelmed by an irresistible desire for Independence and Solitude – my parents had recently divorced, my boyfriend was cheating on me, and my best friends had either gone away for college or gotten married. I was living at home, commuting to my engineering classes and I just wanted to get the hell away from everyone and everything!

I boxed up my knick-knacks and candles and loaded them into…hmmm, now I can't even remember what…I suppose my boyfriend's truck. Anyway, in went the boxes, along with all of my bedroom furniture…the twin bed I'd had since first grade, a vintage vanity dressing table and a typewriter table I had painted royal blue (what was I thinking?), a guncase my Daddy had converted into a bookcase for me and a wooden yard sale love-seat (the afore-mentioned lawn furniture.)

Other bits and pieces trickled in to fill the empty spaces. My boyfriend's mother donated a beige-gray cushioned bucket chair. With my first paychecks from my job as a welder's helper, I bought a small television via the Sears Easy Payment Plan (my sister worked in the Sears credit department) and not longer after that, a dinette set.

It was a cute little apartment, all 70's browns, avocado greens and golds; what sold me was the built-in bookshelf and the fake fireplace with brick mantle – I had never had a mantle to hang my Christmas stocking on before!

I had also never lived completely alone before. It was creepy at first…I had to learn to rein in my overactive imagination that at an earlier age had insisted upon all stuffed animals and portraits being in reverse position at bedtime. The eyes terrified me!

But I did it - I learned to tune out all of the weird noises and scary thoughts. (Except for the night I was finishing The Amityville Horror. Three chapters from the end, I called my sister and pleaded for permission to finish the book at her house and I ended up spending the night.)

Within a year I had moved again. I bought a condominium because I had acquired a roommate, Char, my Siamese kitten, but the apartment complex didn't allow cats! The condo was brand new – new carpet, new appliances, new everything…all creams and light browns that I picked out myself. I had a balcony and a sliding glass door and a walk-in closet. I even had my own washer and dryer!

Two years later I met Tom and my years of apartments and living alone ended, but I'm glad I had that time to myself…for myself. I have friends who never experienced it – they went straight from their parents' house to marriage, with perhaps a few college roommates in between. They've never experienced that solitary feeling, and they're longing for it now. I guess you could say they're searching for something they feel is missing. Perhaps they've just never had a chance to get to know themselves, one on one.

But I don't miss it. I enjoy having time by myself now – no, actually I still need time by myself - but only on a temporary basis. Over the years, whenever I'd feel irritated at picking up someone's cup from the livingroom or putting the toilet seat back down, all it took was one split-second imaginary trip back to my little apartment to smooth my ruffled feathers. I could feel the loneliness seeping from that one flashback, although I never felt it back then.  Back then, my constant solitude was euphoric. Now it would be suffocating.

I'm glad Kirby has her own place right now…a chance to be alone with herself, to get to know herself in a way that's just impossible when there are always others around. In twenty or thirty years from now, when she's taking stock of her life, looking at where she's been, what she's accomplished, and thinking of the dreams she still holds in her heart, this will be one less unknown to worry about. 

Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have. ~Doris Mortman

A place of my own 1978…built-in bookshelves and sister Brenda in my first apartment…

A place for my cat 1979…Char inspecting the condo on move-in day…