The Apartment

If it’s Thursday, it must be time for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop weekly writing prompts. Like every week, there were five great prompts, most of which I could go on and on about.  This week the first prompt felt like it would be the easiest one to flow from my fingers.  So here it goes, for your reading pleasure.

“What was your big dream for yourself when you were 18 and had graduated from high school?”  Boy, what a loaded question that one was!  There were MANY dreams floating through my head when I was 18 and getting ready to march down the aisle to Pomp & Circumstance.  Two dreams in particular were screaming in my ears to listen up and act quickly on them. They involved a “man” and a “home”.

The “man” one was simple, or so I thought.  Win back the heart of my on-again, off-again high school love who I always thought would be “THE ONE”.  Well, after a summer of trying, that one went bust. Oh well, on to bigger and better dreams right? Right!

The “home” dream took a lot longer than I anticipated but after 10 years, I achieved that goal and realized my dream come true.  But, as usual, I have just put the proverbial cart before the horse.  Let’s go back, way back.  As Sophia from the Golden Girls would say, “Picture it. Philadelphia, 1986.”

There I was, a fresh high school graduate, looking to seize all of the opportunities life had to offer.  But I wanted to live those opportunities out on my own.  What kid wouldn’t want that kind of freedom? The ability to come and go as I pleased and not having to answer to anyone.

After a summer spent vacationing out on Long Island in New York, I got my first job at Sears in their catalog order processing department.  Can you say “BORING!”? Three months into that job I landed a pretty posh job working for a major charitable fund-raising division within the Catholic Church.  It was a job that I loved more often than I loathed.    It was that job that helped me to finally live that high school dream.  With each passing paycheck, I stocked up on my household goods, towels, sheets, plates. You name it I bought it!

By September of 1996, I had finally achieved my goal. I had a sweet little two-story, two bedroom apartment in the Northeast section of Philadelphia.  The apartment was in a nice section of the city, accessible to public transit, the rent was dirt cheap (it helped that the landlord was family), I had some great neighbors and an great, old friend who lived just one block over.  What more could a girl ask for?

Fully furnished with the savings I’d set aside and stocked with all the things I needed to make it my own special space in the world.  My dream, while 10 years in the making, had finally become a reality. I was never so happy in my life.