For the few of you that read these, I apologize for the long hiatus. Over the month of December I finally moved out of the hellhole that I unfortunately called home for the past six years. In addition to that, we kicked off the futsal season ( a second place and first place finish for the opening tournaments for my girls; not a bad start at all!) and I came down with the mother of all colds that lasted roughly 3 weeks. To sum everything up, it was a very busy and very stressful month, albeit a very rewarding one.

The main point I wanted to talk about today was the importance of living somewhere that you like. I hated my previous apartment. The management was terrible and changed on a yearly basis, my ceiling leaked, my neighbors were either drug dealers or just inconsiderate, and I never liked going home. I was always afraid that if I got home too late that I would get mugged in the walk between the parking garage and the building. Over the six years I had to call 911 probably close to 20 times to report that someone had overdosed in front of the building. I watched police arrest 3 of my neighbors for various different crimes. It was hell on Earth and it affected my health in severely negative ways.

I’ve dealt with depression my whole life and it took me a while to realize the damage that my old apartment was doing to my mental health. I wasn’t exercising enough, I was eating poorly, I wasn’t socializing, and I was barely writing. I gained a significant amount of weight over the years living there. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the fact that I hated my living situation was the reason for all of this until I moved out and into somewhere that, quite frankly, I absolutely love living.

In the short time that I’ve lived in the new apartment I’ve noticed that I am sleeping better, eating better, exercising almost daily (baby steps), and being more socially active. My old apartment was a constant mess; I clean the new apartment pretty much daily. While I haven’t been writing as much as I want to in the new apartment, that is mostly due to the fact that I am still getting settled in. But the biggest thing that I have noticed is that I genuinely feel better in every way in the new apartment, a sort of wellness that I haven’t felt in years to be honest.

The best part of it all is that I finally have an office in the new apartment and without a doubt it is my favorite room. Even with my brand new couch and television and soundbar in my living room, my office is awesome. In it I have all of my passions; my computer for writing and playing Final Fantasy XIV, my hobby desk for my Warhammer 40,000 models, and most importantly, my library. In the 6 years at the previous apartment, I never once bothered to organize my library. It was priority one here and I love how it looks. Take a look for yourself!

I can’t tell you how good it feels to have all my books out and accessible. When I was painstakingly organizing the entire collection I found myself thinking things like, “I can’t wait to read that one again” or “now I can finally finish this series” or many other awesome thoughts. It felt great to be excited about literature again for what felt like the first time in a very long time.

That’s it for today, I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year! If you take one lesson away from this post, it is the lesson that it is vital to love where you live. I’m excited for the future for the first time in a long time, and a big part of that is this new apartment.

Signing off!