The Little Yellow House

The past few weeks that I’ve spent apartment hunting have resulted in a few conclusions. The first is that things haven’t quite worked out according to plan. Mr. Right has yet to materialize, and somehow (at age 32) I’ve managed to find myself still single, still renting.
The places I’ve been looking at - let’s just say real estate listings are astoundingly deceptive. It illustrates perfectly how language can be shaped or manipulated to serve someone’s purpose, revealing only what the writers want you to know. If I could rewrite the listing for some of the places I’ve looked at, this is what they should say:
-The little yellow house next to the meth lab
-Enjoy winters spent crouched, shivering, in front of space heaters
-So far out in the country that you’ll never again get a date to pick you up
-That funky smell that trails you everywhere will soon be identified as your clothes, once they’ve hung inside the rotting closets
And so on. Victoria and I saw an actual drug deal, in broad daylight, just down the street from one of the places we looked at. There was a dude standing in the middle of the street who handed a baggie to someone sitting in a car. How we avoided screaming as we sped out of there is amazing.
I tend to be a trust your instincts kind of person. I’m not entirely sure I would like living downtown - it has all the drawbacks of living in a big city. Traffic, a longer commute, no parking, street noise, not feeling safe. As Natasha pointed out, we just aren’t big city girls. It is time to face it - I like having a dishwasher and knowing I can walk to my car without getting jacked. While people are scrambling to make the rent to live downtown so they can stumble home with their go cup, I’m able to go home for lunch and sleep later in the mornings. I'm not ready to buy a home yet also.
So for now, I’ve decided stay put and rent a little longer. Where I’m living suits me, and even though it will soon be sold as a condo I’m not kicked out yet. Besides, this buys me some time so I’m not giving up on my dreams: the dream of owning a home that suits my taste exactly, the dream of living somewhere that has four seasons, the dream of living in the same town as my sister, the dream of living in England for awhile, the dream of buying a home with the man I love and want to share my life with. And that little self-preserving voice that keeps saying resist...resist....resist.