The first time I'd heard of my place, I was listening to a podcast about people who'd gone missing. It was a little surprising. Almost every apartment in the area was going for over a thousand dollars a month. I'd never heard anything about that story and neither had any of my friends. Maybe it's the struggle. I know a few of my friends cry themselves to sleep at night. Things are expensive, but we've learned how to be frugal over the years. You start to like the dusty smell of flea market toys and mothballed clothes. You smell a lot less in adulthood. You might start to smoke, or you might just be too accustomed to the state of things. But the flea market always asserts itself. The smell of adulthood is dusty magazines stacked on a closed piano. It wedges itself in the leather and stays in even after you wash it. Here, there're 3 thrift stores in walking distance. If you start on the far side, you can patronize two charity thrifts, a library, a rare book store, and a curio shop. Downtown is dense, cars and people fill the streets every morning, but you'd never hear it in the thrifts. No matter how many people or cars pass by, the store is silent. It's a nice place to lose an afternoon. Every year, there's more and more of those. Cars and people flood it. It's a developing city, they say. Headquartering one of the largest online empires for e-commerce and delivery, it's still showing growing pains. It reminds me of New York. Everything and everyone is set on their own goals, and there isn't a whole lot anyone asks from you. You can be alone, quiet, and independent, and people will leave you alone. It's not like the South, where being a little concerned means you care. You don't pry into anyone's life here, really. You can keep up your shell as long as you'd like, and the city will crash and roll back like waves on the beach. It's a lively place to be. Between the pianist next door and the two amateur vocalists upstairs, there's always something going on. In a way, we have less of an apartment of strangers and more a community of friends. We come together for our needs, celebrate birthdays, mourn funerals, and help each other when we can. In a way, I'm lucky to be here. I quite like most of my neighbors and they treat me pretty well. I try to make sure to clean after myself and leave them food and they do the same in kind. I bring mail to them and they to me. It's nice to see them and I believe they enjoy my presence as much as I do theirs. I live in a massive, dehumanizing modernist sprawl but it's people like my neighbors that make me feel like I didn't totally ruin my life.
