Apartment Living

For the last seventeen years Julie and I have owned and lived in a house. This summer we moved back into an apartment for the first time since our newlywed days.

On our seventh-floor wing, there are four families each of whom has two kids ranging in age from two to fourteen years old.

It’s awesome.

I forgot how great it is living in close community with other people. To a certain degree, it reminds me of college because we’re all in the same stage of life and we all share the same nine-to-five pursuits. And we’re a little like freshmen in that we're all going through this new, challenging experience together.

But compared to college, there is a whole lot less blaring of the stereo, nobody staying up until three in the morning, and there are fewer pranks that end up with me standing in the hallway locked out of my apartment in my underwear.

It’s rumored that there are a bunch of young, single teachers with no kids around the bend in the other seventh floor wing, but we hardly ever see them. In fact, I’ve been here for two months and just found out last week that one of my fellow middle school teachers lives in the other wing. I'm not positive, but I’m pretty sure there has been some stereo-blaring going on in that wing.

Apartment living brings with it a refreshing sense of community. The other day, one of our neighbors came over to borrow a slab of bacon. I paid the favor forward two days later by borrowing an allen wrench from my neighbor across the hall.

I’ll come home from work in the evening and seen two or three of the adults in the hall chatting about this and that. It’s nice.

But by far, my favorite thing though is when the weather is poor or the kids don’t have enough time to go all the way down to the second floor patio, they'll play in the hallway like it’s their front yard. Our four-year neighbor girl rides her bike –complete with training wheels- up and down the hall. The older kids –Annika and Elise included- kick the soccer ball back and forth down the hall. It’s Hong Kong’s narrowest soccer field.

Saturday night we had a game night and munchies at our apartment –oh, I mean flat- with the families from our floor. Good times.

All that and no lawn to mow.

-Jack