The last hour has been the first time in over four years that no other person has had a key and claim to my apartment. Already, the air feels different, as if it lightened the minute the spare bedroom was emptied. I walked in there a little while ago, and the space felt foreign and shrunken, as if my last memory of the room was from when I was five years old and several feet shorter.
If I pause outside the door with my eyes closed, I can still see it the way my grandparents kept it, as a book-lined den. I remember my grandmother in the evening, sitting on the end of the sofa, feet tucked up underneath her and a magazine spread across her lap. My grandfather would be moving about the room, picking out his clothes for the next day and arranging them in a neat pile. He had a shoe shine machine that my sister and I loved to play with. We would press the metal pin that switched it on and watch as the limp red and blue acrylic feathers spun themselves into alert fluffiness. Often times, we would polish our toes, giggling at the unfamiliar tickle.
I get to keep the air and energy of the apartment all to myself for the next several weeks, until my new roommate moves in at the end of July. I will be enjoying it.
There is a lot to be said for the comfort of ones own company. Time to think, reflect and write without the social pressure to entertain.
By July you may be wishing for the company, but for now, cherish the space.
Sweet solace. There is something about being in your own house by yourself that is most compelling.
Now the title to this post is just what a parent wants to see his daughter broadcast to the world at large. I can just hear the spooky music beginning to rise in the background.
I hope that your next roommate will be as nice and considerate as your last!
Anuradha, it is true, my last roommate was both of those things!
I lived alone as an adult for 13 years before getting married. I have now been married that long. I was ready at the time to be part of a family but I do not mind when my wife and son are gone for a couple of days.
Having the house alone every now and then is heavenly.