My First Apartment
$621 for a piece of peace.
I got an email at the beginning of the month, reminding me to consider renewing my lease for the 2026-2027 year.
“We’ve enjoyed having you as a tenant. Please note, we are in our busiest season and units can be rented sight unseen, therefore, we encourage you to sign your lease renewal prior to August 1st.”
I believe them about the busyness. Apartment hunting is competitive in the city, particularly over the summer months.
My current place is the first that’s been decorated in eleven years. Chicago gave me the sense of stability I’d been missing for the better part of a decade. Noisy neighbors and an in-unit washer and dryer for under two grand wasn’t a bad deal.
Every twelve months, signing a new lease brings me back to 2014; I’ve come a long way.
The excitement was immediate. I re-read the job offer.
After a year and a half of interviews and rejections, I finally landed at a boutique ad agency; a small sliver of Omnicom Media Group, specializing in beating the dead horse of print media.
It didn’t matter. What did, was my chance to work in a creative industry. $40,000 per year would be enough to move out from under Big Blue and into a place of my own.
Knollwood Towers came at the right time. The antiquated vanilla cement brick building was constructed in 1969, and had an interior frozen in 2003—white refrigerator included.
My cozy studio sat outside of the west end of the city. Each unit had a front-facing or back balcony attached. Most days would start the same: grab a cup of drip before work, sit on the patio (weather permitting), and smoke an L&M Menthol 100. Slowly.
I was on my way out of Dawn’s revolving funhouse. I planned it. I manifested it. I remember putting the agency and moving out on my vision board with pictures of businesswomen in fashionable, tailored suits.
Names of books I can’t quite remember and words that encapsulated what I wanted to be, were all part of the cut outs from magazines like ‘Elle.’
As each of my goals came to fruition, I figured it was time to say goodbye to the Parker’s hand-me-down mattress that saved me from sleeping on a naked floor.
The dated apartment was a little under 500 sq ft and came ready with an alcove to cradle the brand-new queen-size bed I bought from Slumberland.
I kept that bed until 2021.
My parents drove up from Iowa to help me move into a new beginning. I let them have the bed, and while my dad complained about the mattress being “too damn soft,” I slept on the sofa.
I didn’t give an ounce of a fuck. This was my new home. This was my time.
Living alone meant I no longer had to negotiate the ordinary. If I wanted to leave dishes in the sink until morning, they waited. The thermostat belonged to me. The television belonged to me. Even the silence belonged to me. It was the first time I understood that independence isn’t always loud. I didn’t have to co-exist with anyone. No roommate, no baby, no man, no parents. I didn’t have to scoot over, make room, or hide.
I coined this the “Sex and the City” phase of my late 20s.
That studio became the place I saw myself: the one crying-throwing-up-sliding-down-the-wall over a man who certainly didn’t deserve it. The one who chain-smoked on the balcony, had solo dance parties, and learned to cook exactly four meals.
I thought my first apartment was proof I had made it. Maybe it was at the time.
I keep renewing my lease by the water because after years of searching, this is the first place where I started to unpack more than just boxes.
I unpacked the pictures on the wall. The furniture I chose. My morning coffee routine. The decision to stay.