A funny thing happens when you become accustomed to moving from one place to another in short periods of time. You stop thinking of each new space as a permanent residence, but more of as a temporary dwelling that even from the beginning, you don’t really let yourself get attached to. For most people, deciding to move is a big decision. Not because it takes so much physical labor, emotional stress, or financial burden, but because it’s difficult to attach the meaning of home to a place we’re not used to. I don’t think Sergine, Misha and I have that problem.
In the past 4 years, we’ve moved 3 different times. In the beginning, we lived in our school’s dormitory, being fortunate enough to be on the same floor. This was in Flatbush, and although it’s far down in Brooklyn, it’s also a constant hub of activity. There’s no shortage of places to eat at 12 am, there are supermarkets and salons and discount shopping stores, and I’ve always felt the neighborhood to have a certain distinct personality. The dorms at our school are cozy. They house only around two or three hundred students, so it’s not hard to get to know one another. But dorms, no matter how many tapestries or photo collages you put on the walls can never really feel like home. For example, you’d never fill out a form to have a friend sleep over at your own house, or for a maximum of three nights for that matter. For most people, this is their first home away from their families, but in a way, you still feel like you’re being supervised (although for the best considering some of the incidents we’ve seen).
And so, we moved. This time to a lovely 2 floor duplex right across the street from where we were before. I genuinely think at that time we thought we were going to commit to living in that house for the rest of our college years. But things are unpredictable, and people are even more unpredictable. A year and a half later, after living with dozens of different people which we met through Airbnb when one of our 5 roommates would go on vacation, we decided to move again. This time it was only the three of us, and after much consideration, we settled on a little 3-bedroom apartment on the border of Crown Heights and Brownsville. It’s about 40 minutes from school, about 40 minutes from Manhattan, and way different from Flatbush. For one, it’s much quieter. There isn’t nearly as much access to restaurants, there’s one supermarket, and a salon that closes early and does nails only on the weekends. But it’s peaceful. And we became accustomed again.
As we near the end of our year lease, it’s almost comical to think that we’re considering moving again. There aren’t any incredibly dramatic reasons for wanting to do so. Perhaps at this point, we’ve come to fall in love with the idea that we can always do better. Instead of attaching the significance of a home to a physical space, we’ve associated the idea of a home with each other instead. Or we’re just plain used to it. I still haven’t found one answer. But as I’m sitting in my still-relatively-new room scrolling through StreetEasy, I can’t help but be excited about all the new possibilities that come along with moving, regardless of how crazy my friends and family think we are.
– Aliza Khan
Thank you, Lizard lol for sharing this with us.
xoxo
ladysergine.com 