30 in 30: No. 23 - Our Dumpy Apartment

When Eric and I got married, I moved in with him to his 700 square foot apartment which he had inhabited for the previous 6 years... comfortably. Needless to say, when I moved in, things got a little less comfortable. I brought the bare minimum and most of my stuff stayed in storage. Still, my meager collection of belongings served as the tipping point in this Eric's tiny one-bedroom castle. We had boxes lining the hallway, stacks of who-knows-what throughout the place. We often heard things crashing to the ground and blamed the other for booby-trapping the place.

Eric's parents came to visit us in our apartment about 4 months after we got married. In the business of life at the time, we didn't have time to take our recycling (cans/bottles) in before they arrived, so we stashed them in about the only remaining place in the apartment... beside our bed. In the middle of the night, Mom and Dad Vogt were sleeping about 11 feet away from us, on an air mattress that completely filled the living room, I needed to use the restroom. Falsely believing that I was toward the middle of the bed, I rolled over to discover myself falling off the bed. I fell into our recycling, making an atrociously loud noise, waking not only Eric's parents up, but I am certain our whole building as well. Eric's Dad shouts "is everybody ok?" We laughingly shouted "yes." And overall it made for a good laugh.

I tell this story not to let you all know how bad we've had it. We spent the first 18 months of our marriage in that apartment and I would not trade that time for anything. I loved always having Eric within earshot. I loved that even when we were doing separate things, we were always together. That apartment forced us to become closer. We made so many memories in that apartment from the recycling debacle to three sock drawers and the pen in the kitchen.

The truth is, if you asked either of us as we sit here in our new, comfortable, roomy home if we miss that place, we would answer "no" in unison. But that time added character to our marriage that moving directly into this lovely place together would not have produced. During that time we sacrificed emotionally and financially as we worked together toward a common goal. I loved us in that apartment. And I will cherish that time forever.