House Hunters, Boise Edition, and Examining My Motives

I put a lot of time into finding apartments to check out for this newest batch of apartment hunting. My previous experiences helped a lot in avoiding the kinds of places that you needed to meet a certain poverty level to get or that had a three-year waiting list, and with so many places to look at, I was pretty confident I'd find somewhere in my budget.

House Hunting Stage One!

I knew I wanted to stay in Boise--I've kind of fallen in love with this town, with the Greenbelt and all the interesting places to go and the beautiful trees everywhere-- but I was willing to move to another part of town if I had to. My first day of in-person apartment hunting was July 12th since I wasn't working that day and could dedicate the entire day to apartment hunting.

I started out in the North End. I was delighted for an opportunity to drive around there-- a lot of beautiful old houses in wonderful condition are in that part of town. This was not one of them.

I chalked this one up in the "maybe" column of my list and continued on.

The next few places seemed nice enough but didn't actually have any openings until well after I needed to vacate my current premises. Then I found a place that stopped me cold-- a beautiful sky-blue house on a fancy street. How the heck did something like that make it onto my list?

Well, I quickly figured out that it was the basement that was for rent, which explained a lot.

After walking out of there, I immediately called the company to see if I could turn in an application. Turns out someone bought the lease the day before I got there. 

The rest of the day was filled with disappointment. Everywhere I went either had no available apartments or had apartments more expensive than I'd anticipated. Though I'd scheduled an entire day's worth of visits, by 2PM I was physically and emotionally exhausted and wasn't sure whether I was more likely to fall asleep at the wheel or start crying. I decided the wisest course of action was to go home and take a nap.

After I had recovered a bit, I wised up and started making phone calls to places instead, crossing off everywhere that I couldn't afford or that didn't have openings.  I did make it out to one more lock box showing that evening.

I wasn't encouraged.

Now, meanwhile, my roommate was doing some searching of her own. She was determined to move to Meridian, since it's closer to her work, and was doing her best to persuade both me and the third roommate (the one who's lease is still good until May) to move with her. She very quickly found and fell in love with a townhome out there and turned in an application, willing to take the risk of paying the full rent if she couldn't convince two people to move in with her. I didn't really want to move to this place-- not because of any bad feelings towards her, but because of the fact that I had no desire at all to live in Meridian-- but I thought it was nice to have that as a backup if my efforts in Boise failed.

Well, the owner of the townhome called back to say that this house had a limit on unmarried adults who could live in it and they were wanting to rent it to a family. So, too bad about the $40 application fee.

Back to my apartment hunting in Boise-- while my first day was a disappointment, I did not give up. I decided that I needed to raise my budget for potential rent by $100, which made me wince since that meant looking at places that cost more than half of my current income. But I am supposed to be getting more hours as the year goes on, I could survive a couple of lean months until then.

House Hunting Stage Two--with an increased budget

I didn't end up visiting most of those places. Phone calls eliminated them quickly. But I scrounged up a few more apartments that had just gone on the market and were for sure available still.

House Hunting Stage Three--and I'm getting a little concerned at how short this list is

Alas, I found that all of these places were very run-down and not really anything I felt appropriate to pay more than half my income to live in.

In retrospect, using a clear pin as a reference point for my current apartment isn't super helpful 

The above is a slight exaggeration; there were a few places I hadn't quite wiped off my list yet (like the apartment in the first video). But I was certainly feeling discouraged. Still, I came up with a few more places I could call, a few more listings I hadn't tried. Maybe a few of the more pricey (but not too much more) places were worth considering.

And then my one roommate fell in love with another place out in Meridian.

There's another girl in the ward who needs a place, so the two of them worked together to find The Franklin at Ten Mile--this fancy new place that's still under construction and features a website where all the "photos" are obvious computer renderings of the hoped for final project interspersed with random photos of people smiling. No, seriously, check out their website.

And while there are two bedroom apartments, getting three roommates would make a considerable difference in rent (putting the rent we'd each pay well below even my original budget). So my roommate proceeded to turn every conversation into an opportunity to try to convince me to move in with them. To her credit, it wasn't only the reduction in rent--we are friends, and she knew I was still looking. Still, I dug my heels in. After all, Meridian is not Boise, and has less trees and less biking areas and adds 20 minutes to many of my commute distances each way.

That itty bitty half a centimeter on this side of the map is about ten miles in real life

It got to the point where I was avoiding my roommate a bit. But despite my stubborn refusal, I wasn't sure I'd get a choice. Could I really afford to live where I wanted to live?

Now, I usually try to keep things pretty light here. But sometimes bigger issues have to be addressed, like it or not, and depression is one of them.

Depression has been a part of my life for a long time, though it's only in the last couple of years I've been able to admit to myself that I needed help and start getting treatment. And I'm actually doing quite well, perhaps the best I have in a long time, at managing my symptoms. I take medicine that helps, and I've been learning more and more about figuring out which of my thoughts are rational or irrational and how to manage them.

Still, I get "moods", times where nothing is OK and about me least of all, and all of the stress and pressure I was under threw me into one. I spent some time crying in my room, unable to sleep until very late at night.

But I felt much better when I woke up the next morning. I sat in bed for a while, taking my time about getting up. I took a look at my notebook where I've been writing down all the addresses and phone numbers and rent and details.

And I realized I needed to move to Meridian.

It wasn't, understand, simply a matter of running out of options in Boise. I still had places to try. But that night of feeling broken put some things into perspective for me.

When I'd been so upset and angry the night before, the idea of accepting the offer to move to Meridian had felt like admitting defeat. Thinking about it more, I could see that I was getting attached to the idea of romanticized independence-- that's what adults do, right? They get their own place and they pay for it themselves and they find it themselves and they keep it running themselves and they don't need help ever because no needing help means that you are strong and successful. Right? 

Yeah, no, that was being irrational.

And my roommate's persuasions had triggered some of my knee jerk reaction too. Now's not the time to get into that story (maybe later, this person will certainly show up in other stories), but there was a person who put me through a lot of emotional manipulation and abuse. I didn't recognize how much she had hurt me until after she was out of my life, but I did learn that I am susceptible to that kind of thing. So when a repeated argument focuses less on the logical reasons I should do something and more on how the desired action relates to my relationship with another person-- I get a bad taste in my mouth. It reminds me too much of what happens when those tactics go too far.

When I stepped away from my more irrational thoughts and feelings and considered my choice from that saner standpoint, I saw the one vital reason that I couldn't stay in Boise.

If I stayed in Boise, I'd be alone.

I mean, I'd make friends, of course. I've made some friends in my ward in the short time I've been here. But at night, after a long day, when I'm most susceptible to the demons that live in my brain, I'd be alone in my room every time.

I'm an introvert with social anxiety, so it's very easy for me to be a "hermit". Don't get me wrong, some time alone is good for you. But too much is like a very weird drug; you hate it but you can't figure out how to stop. Being alone at home seems so much easier because there's no one to judge or reject you.

But dealing with mental illness sometimes means recognizing that the person who rejects you the most and judges you the most harshly is, well, you.

In college, I had a lot of lousy roommates. And a handful of absolutely wonderful ones. But during my first year of school, I was alone. The structure of the apartment meant I never saw my "roommates" unless we passed each other on the way to the bathroom. And that was the year when I went through the worst depressive period of my life. I just... I couldn't handle being that alone. I needed other people around to pull me out of my brain. Even lousy roommates were better than that lonely year had been. And when I had good roommates, that support system made a huge difference.

So, through that lens, my choice was pretty clear. I could spend a year living all alone in Boise, in a lousy apartment for a price I could barely afford. Or I could spend a year living with two girls I actually liked in Meridian, in a nice apartment for a price I could definitely afford.

So I swallowed my pride and asked if they'd still let me move in with them to Meridian.

I still haven't seen the place in person. We had an interesting time with the application process-- computer errors, it turned out, so it took them longer than expected to tell us and we still haven't signed the lease. But the application was accepted, and somehow (if we can manage to get everything up the stairs) we're going to move into this new place on Saturday. 

Maybe in the future, I'll move back to Boise. With more time to anticipate the move, I could find roommates there and struggle less with the fact that a two-week window does not leave a lot of available apartments. But that's a good way into the future. For now, I have a place to live, and people to share it with. Maybe it isn't perfect, but it's enough.