Time for a change.

I've lived in the same apartment for - believe it or not - nineteen years now, but...

With my husband gone, I don't need two bedrooms anymore. I look around, and I see so much space wasted storing stuff I don't use or just haven't bothered getting rid of.



I've spent the last couple of weeks looking at new places. How refreshing to see apartments that have actually been remodeled in the last decade! I've seen a couple places that were close to what I want, but none that made me want to move in on the spot.

After my tumble down the stairs a few weeks ago, it's imperative that I find a ground-floor place with a decent amount of light (I tend to get depressed in a place that doesn't get adequate sunshine) that also accepts cats. I'd also like something in a quiet neighborhood with a view - not the ocean, necessarily, just something nice and calming for me to look at while I write. My current writing space (aka, my kitchen table) overlooks a beautiful oak tree.

It'll be a daunting task, downsizing from a cluttered two-bedroom place, but every day I walk past stuff thinking, "When I go, I'll be getting rid of that." I've got shelves and shelves and SHELVES of books - a writer's bane - but most of them I've read once or not at all. I've got boxes of old receipts and tax records that are well past the five-year limit.

I've still got tons of my late husband's stuff that I haven't gotten rid of because it seemed... well, disrespectful. But he's been gone four years now, so it's time to move on.

Whatever new place I finally move into will be mine and mine alone - free of clutter and the ghost of old memories.