February 27, 2008 | | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff

I just realized we’ve been living here more than a month now. It’s weird because it feels like it’s gone by fast, but at the same time, when I think about living in Orlando it feels like a distant memory. Like it was years ago and not months ago.

It was certainly a pain in the ass getting here with all of three weeks to prepare for a move to a new city, but I think we made the right decision moving here. Brandon and I were driving home from Target the other day and he said (completely out of the blue) that he was (probably for the first time in his life) completely happy. I would have to concur.

We’ve been living together for a long time now and we’ve lived in a lot of different places, but none of those were places that we both made a joint decision to live at. It’s always been one-sided. Brandon lived in Savannah with me while I went to college (technically he was supposed to be going to college as well, but who wants to think about what a mess that whole situation was — and how we almost broke up because of it). Then I moved to Orlando with him so he could go to college. He never liked Savannah (though I would move back there in a second) and we both hated Orlando from day one. It was the only option for the type of school he needed to go to, though, so we didn’t have a choice. Then we wound up staying there for two more years out of his loyalty for that school and the teachers and students he worked with there.

The great thing about moving here was that it was decision we made together. He’d gotten A LOT of other job offers and really he could have even held out for much longer to see what else would come along (he’s still getting offers to this day), but we decided that we both wanted to move here. It’s not our dream place (if we ever truly got a choice and could live anywhere, we’d move to North Carolina, no contest), but it’s nice for now and I can see living here for a while. Whereas I wanted to get out of Orlando practically as soon as we got there and every time we had to renew our lease, it was like a little piece of my soul was being crushed.

Also, I think it’s my favorite apartment. This apartment very much feels like a home, whereas everywhere else has always felt so temporary. It’s definitely the safest I’ve ever felt. I really liked both the apartments we had in Savannah because they were real houses and not soulless complexes, but having the police knock on your door to ask if they can check the crawl space for an escaped murderer who dumped his car right behind your house is not the greatest feeling. Or as in our last apartment, listening to gang members having a screaming match right outside your front door about whose bullet wound was the best. (I am absolutely not shitting you, I heard every word and they actually came to blows about it.)

I still haven’t even seen half of the city (It’s the largest city in the US, don’t you know.) but I look forward to exploring it. Brandon’s on a crazy deadline right now and has been working long hours and even weekends, but once he gets that done in a few weeks (hopefully) we should have plenty of time to see new things. Unfortunately, we’ve been here a month and have not found a great Mexican restaurant (we’ve tried 5 so far!) or a pizza place that delivers (’cause who wants pizza from a chain?). Right now that’s my priority.

Tags: apartment, Jacksonville, job, moving, Orlando

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