The next two weeks were a whirlwind.
I grew tired of looking for a room to rent, so I decided to join a group. It started off more as a duo. Via a mutual friend, I get in contact with Virginia, who wanted to move to NYC to follow her dreams. Relatable. We connected over cartoons from our childhoods and badly dubbed anime. Nostalgia is a powerful drug. Virginia found another woman, Mary, who was currently teaching in Japan and who had similar likes, and our duo became a trio. I was the only person out of the group residing in New York at the time, so it was my duty to find the ideal apartment — a.k.a. the One.
And I had never been more frustrated.
I went from realtor to realtor, or “brokers” as they were called in Manhattan, like a steel ball in a pinball machine.
The first apartment I visited that was promised to be furnished was not furnished. Really? You had one job.
Another apartment I visited was still under renovation.
“It’ll be complete before you and your future roommates move in,” the broker said.
I was skeptical of this because 1) The walls of the apartment weren’t completely painted and 2) There were light fixtures, a refrigerator, and other items bunched together in the middle of the living room in one big pile. All he cared about was the commission. He wanted this place sold now. I experienced the same thing with another broker who showed me an apartment in a very high high-rise. Their smile was not to be trusted.
During one viewing, a broker couldn’t even show me the apartments I wanted to look at — two of them! — because he didn’t notify the building supervisor in advance. He tried to flirt with me through small talk. So professional. I wasn’t in the mood, even less so when my afternoon didn’t go as planned.
And for some reason, no matter who was showing an apartment, not every bedroom had a closet. “You can put your clothes in the hall closet,” one broker said. And she was serious. Who in their right mind would be fine with having their clothes in a hallway closet? I reported all these interactions to Mary and Virginia and sent photos and videos of the apartments to them. All the apartments I viewed start to run together.
My mom, bless her soul, was doing her own search from Alabama to help out. Heck, even my grandmom, who was visiting the city for a week and was supposed to be relaxing or shopping on Fifth Avenue, took some time out of her day to go see apartments with me. Angels. Absolute angels. I was thankful for them both, but I was still stressed about the entire situation because the end of my lease was drawing near and it was all you can think about at work, when I was eating, when I was writing, before I went to sleep at night and maybe this was a divine sign to go back to my hometown, lock your talents away, become someone’s secretary, and never ever dream of wanting to do something different from my peers and those who had come before me ever again.
I was certain I’d seen every three-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood.
Whoever said viewing apartments was fun was lying.
Apartment hunting in New York had cut ten years off my life.
The Finale: https://jadetheeditor.medium.com/revolving-door-part-5-final-7eb41624d932