Bittersweet

For the past few days in a row,

someone has been pulling the fire alarm in our apartment building.....

......at 4am.

Someone has also been ruining other people's clothes in our building's laundromat, which makes me afraid that if I leave the room with my laundry in there I will only come back and discover that someone doused my clothes in Clorox.....

Not to mention the washing machines that already ruin and rip a great deal of our clothes.

And don't get me started on the vandal who went through our parking garage a few months ago and vandalized multiple cars (including mine).

Or our neighbors who cook the most awful-smelling food which permeates through the walls.

Or the fact that Kenadie's room constantly smells like mold no matter how many times we ask management to fix it. 

Or how many times our heater and our AC units have broken.

Or the fact that we can't go swimming at our complex without being surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke because every adult at the pool is a serious chain smoker. 

Or the rusty, old playground out back that is falling apart and makes me too nervous to let Kenadie play there.

Or our kitchen appliances that need constant repairs.

If we weren't already moving out of state in four short weeks,

I would definitely still be moving out of this place!  

I'm a little tired of apartment living, but I'm particularly sick of living in this apartment.

And the fire alarm antics in the past few nights have only fueled my desire to get out of here.

But then again,

this is the only home Kenadie knows.

This is the home we brought Lila to after her birth.

This is where we started raising our family.

We have a lot of great memories from within these walls involving this old, ratty furniture we found in the dump that I "hate so much". 

(I'll probably be a little sad returning most of this furniture to the dump when the time comes!)

We've learned a lot

and lived a lot 

during our time here.

We've eaten a lot of beans and rice and homemade wheat bread all from our food storage.

We've watched Kenadie dance around the old carpet of our living room over and over again. 

We have had multiple mornings of snuggles in our little bedroom.

I sang to and rocked Kenadie in her room every night before bedtime.

And though I look forward to a future of hopefully having more space, having my own washer and dryer, and not living in an apartment surrounded by questionable people,

I can't say that I have ever felt "poor"

or that I have been less happy because of where we live.

Though there are some annoyances and inconveniences of living in this building,

we have been happy.

Very, very happy.

So while I was trying not to curse the drunken (or just plain inconsiderate?) individual last night who has been enjoying pulling the fire alarm, 

I kept reminding myself that I will probably cry next month when we leave this place,

because despite it all, it has been home.

And there is no place like home.