that whole "closing a door/opening a window" thing...

i moved in with carson. that's right. my boyfriend and i are now "living in sin". lucky for us, we are heathens for whom "sin" carries no threat.

nevertheless, this was a huge decision and one that we didn't make lightly. so far, all is going well. there have been no major cat fights (and i mean that literally: between the two of us we have four cats) and our love for each other has not diminished yet as a result of sharing space. in the interest of full disclosure, however, this has only been going on since friday.

last night, though, i bade farewell to my apartment. and it sucked and made me sad. don't get me wrong -- i'm happy to be living with carson and i think it was the right decision for us, but leaving my space, the apartment that was all mine and only mine, was tough.

i spent three and a half years in that apartment. that's the longest i've ever stayed in one place since college. it was a good place for me, filled with good memories and growth. i was a law student there, i became a lawyer there, i had good relationships while i lived there, and a few that i could have done without. there were adventures and misadventures (such as that unfortunate evening when i almost accidentally burned the place down, or the time krista and i bleached my hair, or when greg and andrew and i had sangria and wii night), manic pseudo-academic all-nighters, varying degrees of success with house plants and roof gardening, my 30th birthday party, three notre dame football seasons. mostly, though, it was 3 & 1/2 years of laughs and cries and struggles and triumphs. and it all happened in my little space, a space i made my own, filled with the contents of my life. and almost all of it was good.

last night, after i finished mopping the floors and scrubbing all the surfaces, after all the trash had been taken out and all the closets emptied, i couldn't leave. i kept walking through the rooms, looking around, remembering. if things go as i hope they should, i'll never live by myself again. that's more than a little terrifying, especially for a selfish and bratty girl like me who enjoys being the boss of her own life. but this is all part of it, right? and that's exciting.

but i'm allowed to feel a little sad.

goodbye, little apartment! thank you!