I moved for the fifth and hopefully final time of my Eugene stay this past weekend. I hate moving. It’s time consuming and expensive. It starts with the task of finding a new place. Then there’s the packing and the transportation of belongings, and then the cleaning and unpacking. During my sophomore and junior years I was lucky enough to have roommates that were on top of the whole process, making sure we didn’t end up on the street.
But last August, sick of always washing my dishes, the two wonderful ladies I had been living with since the residence halls each moved into separate places, leaving me to wash my own dishes. Not wanting to go through the effort, I settled for the first apartment within my price range without orange-brown carpeting. I told myself the apartment was “punk rock.” This was really just a way of being optimistic about the fact it was a total dump.
It would only be a couple of weeks before the rotting wood, the stale cigarette smell that emanated from the walls and the kitchen so small I couldn’t even open the stove door all the way would get to me. Thankfully, a much larger and
slightly cheaper apartment with proper air circulation and a claw-foot bathtub opened up in the building where a friend lives. So I stuffed all my belongings into garbage bags and hauled them over.
Now, as I unpack those garbage bags, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic about my previous residences. In college, when life progresses so quickly, the experiences in each location are unique. Each place represents a different phase of my life.
First there was the second floor of Adams Hall. We had nightly dance parties and started a girl gang in order to harass the boys in one of the music halls. Dinner at Carson Hall was a social event, and sweet talking the resident assistants out of being “written up” became an art form.
Then there was what barely qualified as a house on Hilyard Street. My roommates and I painted the living room walls purple and started a Cyndi Lauper cover band in the garage. And everyone knows what that neighborhood is like on Friday and Saturday nights.
Last year the house was a lot nicer, and everyone living there settled down some. We had dinner parties and craft nights. Evenings were often spent watching talk shows and “Friends” reruns and working on crossword puzzles.
I would never move back, but I still have fond memories of my stays in those places. Despite whatever shortcomings the dwellings may have had, living in them was a blast because of who I lived there with and how we spent our time. There’s an intoxicating freedom that comes with finally moving out from under your parents’ roof. It’s inspiring and exciting.
Perhaps the punk rock apartment wouldn’t have been so bad had I asked the other tenants in the building to start a band with me.