Over the past three years, I have lived in four different places. I have lived in a dorm that was the size of my bedroom at my parents house, a bug and mold infested apartment, a barely-insulated townhouse, and now a three-story “apartment” with two other people (we each get our own floor?). While I’ve skipped around housing several times, many things always stay the same. My neighbors are always noisy, and I always find odd things outside of my front door on Saturday mornings. The parking lots are always crowded, and people are constantly fighting for the front-row spot. More than anything, though, the smell is always the same. Allendale probably has at least two cows for every person, and no matter where I have lived in this tiny town, the smell of manure lingers in the air every morning. Gross.
What makes each one of them very special to me, though, is that all of them have been my own. Each of them represent various stages of my independence, and have been (and still are) my own private sanctuaries. So while the world may tell me what to do while I’m outside the confines of my house(s), I get to decide what goes on while I’m inside.
