60 Day Notice

I got a letter in the mail today. It was from the apartment complex that I am currently living at. My father and I have until February 15th to decide if we are staying in this apartment or not. The lease expires on April 15th and we need to give a 60 day notice if we intend to leave.

I hate moving. I haven't moved much in my life. I don't know if you can count moving in and out of college as "moving". For most of my life, I've lived in one house in Brockport, NY, which is now my mother's home. My first real move came after I graduated College in 2010. I moved into a small apartment in my current complex in June of that year. I stayed there for about a year until April of 2011. My father finally broke up with his girlfriend and we decided to get a place together. That is where I have been for the last year. Actually, I almost forgot about an earlier move. I did move in at another place here in Leesburg sometime in 2007 or 2008 with my father. That may have been my first real move. That place wasn’t too bad, but it had a communal laundry, the neighborhood wasn’t great (not too bad, but not as good as the current one), the pool was never open, and it had mice. Not a terrible place to live, but not as nice as the current place.

I have to say, I love this place. I've never needed much in my life, and I will be content if this is the largest place I will ever live in (other than my mother's home). The complex has nice facilities (even if I rarely use them) and it's in a nice part of town. Leesburg is kind of boring, but I still like it here. I would prefer to stay in the Northern-Virginia/Maryland region because of the history and politics. If my friends ever come down to visit me, accommodations wouldn't be a problem and they can get to and from Dulles really easily if I can't get them there myself.

Like I said, I hate moving. It's not so much the emotional baggage of leaving a place that I once called "home”. Actually, I don’t really consider any of these places a “home”. My “home” will always be (for now), my mother’s home.

I just hate packing. I have so much crap. I never organize things when I pack. I end up with about a million miscellaneous boxes with things like a single shoe, random receipts, dirty change, a coat hanger, and an extension cord. All of which I will need at some point, but won't be able to find later because it is in the back of the closet under four other random boxes. Half of my boxes are boxes I haven’t looked through in years. I actually found perishable food from Wells in some of my boxes last year. And some of that food wasn’t from my Senior year… YUCK! I actually kind of like organizing and consolidating boxes. But I always slack off, my allergies act up, I forget to pack half the things lying around, and just rush to get everything into something.

I’m not physically strong, so I hate moving large furniture. Since we have been living here, my father has acquired much more… I have to say, most furniture was not designed with moving in mind. Most of it is awkwardly shaped, has nothing to grab on to, and is heavy as hell. The newer stuff is light, but the older furniture is made out of real wood. REAL WOOD! I always have some kind of emotional breakdown, wishing I was strong and wasn’t such a disappointment to my father. And of course stairs are a huge problem. There has never been a straight set of stairs at any of the places I have lived in. Why do so many places feel the need to design the stairs like an M.C.Escher drawing? So many angles! So many turns! Those three little steps followed by five feet of flatness just for three more little steps! Random steps with huge drop offs next to them! ARGH!

My father is the kind of person who does a move all at once. Heaven forbid, we split the move over two days. When I came down in 2010, my father and I left New York in the morning but we had to stop and pick up some stuff from my sister's ex-boyfriend in Mansfield, PA. We wasted three hours packing up my sister's stuff and chopping up old furniture that my father had stored there for a while (something he promised would be done by the time we got there...). We had to dispose of it, because disposing of it himself would have taken some effort on his part. So we needed to pack up junk, just to throw it away in Virginia. Mansfield is pretty early on the Rochester-to-Leesburg route, so we had another five hours of driving before we got to our destination.

It was late by the time we got back. It was also a hot and humid summer night. I was tired. But no, we had to move EVERYTHING in that night. I would have preferred to have gotten a hotel for the night and move in the next day, but NOOOOOO. We had to work the next day! Yup, by noon the day after I had moved in, I was at work. Putting in a half day. Would it have killed us to have taken a full day off to unpack a little and get some things organized? Or at least rest? I guess he really needed that money.

When we got the new (current apartment), we had to move out during the cold, pouring rain. Oh, we didn’t HAVE to move out that day. It was warm and sunny the next day, but noooo, ALL ON THAT DAY! We really couldn’t have split it up between two days? Random boxes of junk that I don’t need (plus many boxes that belonged to him and my sister), plus some light and unnecessary furniture could be moved on one day, and the rest could be moved on the next. Seeing how we weren’t traveling very far, if I desperately needed something, I could have just walked over and gotten it. Well, I guess I need to take truck rental into consideration and how much it would cost for an extra day… WAIT! We borrowed a vehicle from work to do that move! There was no truck rental! AHHHHHHH!

Well, I guess I’ll have to talk to my father when he gets back on Monday to see what he is planning to do. I would prefer to stay, but money might be an issue. I don’t know if we’ll have jobs in the upcoming 12 months. We don’t want to back out of a lease agreement, but a month-by-month lease charges more than a 12-month lease. This place is fairly cheap, compared to the area. I wouldn’t mind moving in with my father’s girlfriend. She is nice and has a lovely home, but I don’t feel like I could be myself there. She doesn’t have a problem with me and she won’t force her lifestyle on me, but I still would feel weird there. It’s also in the middle of nowhere, so a car will be essential. If my friends do visit me, accommodations shouldn’t be a problem, but getting them to and from the airport (or bus station or whatever) would be a problem if I am working and/or can’t drive.

Personally, I would like to have my own little place again while my father lives with his girlfriend. But getting a car/license would be very important for that to happen. I doubt I’ll get either before April 15^th, let alone February 15^th. Like I said, I’ll have to discuss this with my father when he gets back. I like my current situation and I don’t want to have to move again.