A Year in the Life: Autumn

I stood on the gravel in the parking lot outside of my friend’s wedding reception while five of my best friends linked arms and prayed over me. I felt the tears fall down my cheeks and onto my dress as I clasped the hands of those on either side of me as though they were the only force holding me up. I took turns hugging them all and kissing their cheeks, thanking them for their fierce friendship and support. As I hugged the last one I held on to her just a little tighter because as soon as I let go I would get into my car and drive home, then wake up the next day and drive north. 

Autumn. 

I had decided to move to New Hampshire to help start a church with a group of people who wanted to show others the love of Jesus. My parents made the drive with me packing one of their cars and mine to the brim with what felt like necessities and if it didn’t fit then it didn’t make the cut. We left at 4:30 on Sunday evening October 2nd and drove into the night stopping at a hotel around 3:30 am in Who even knows where, Pennsylvania. The following morning we set out again fearing we would never actually make it out of Pennsylvania between all the construction and their speed limits being set at under a turtle’s pace. 

Just after dinner time we crossed over the New Hampshire state line in time to see a single goose fly across the sky with precision and purpose. The goose has long been a symbol of God’s encouragement and faithfulness in our family. So with that welcome banner hanging over us we headed to the apartment I would share with two other women. Mom and Dad were able to stay for a few days and meet the group of people I had joined to help start this church. At 5 am on October 6th my parents headed back home and I once again stood in a parking lot with tears pouring down my face. It was real now. I lived here. 

I started two jobs and quickly fell in love with each of them. They are both incredibly positive spaces filled with hilarious and charismatic people. The team for the church met each Wednesday night to study The Word and have some time as a community to get to know one another while trying to figure out how we could best help and love on this city. I had known one of my roommates from years back when I worked at a camp in this area one summer during college. The other roommate I had never met, and to be honest-we weren’t exactly a love at first sight story. During this season our home was filled with more tension and turmoil than peace and calm. We all three tried and sometimes we were all three really great, then just two of us were, then it would switch, and sometimes we were just all three uncomfortable. However, we kept choosing to do our best in the moment (even when we failed) to make things better and work on our friendships with one another. Knowing how far we have come now and what a place of sanctuary our home has become for others in our lives makes it clear why there was so much opposition in the beginning. I’m getting ahead of myself though, that will come in a later season. 

When I first arrived I had been avoiding cooking because we had a gas stove. I’ve never been one to claim culinary fame even on the electric stoves I was used to in the South. But one day I decided I would embrace it and cook breakfast for my roommate and myself. I put the bacon in the pan and was cutting up the fruit when the room seemed to be rapidly gaining a haze. The bacon was cooking awfully fast so I turned the gas down a bit.  I was too late. The smoke alarm suddenly sounded. I waved the dish towel in front of it like I normally did back in college, but it didn’t help. So thinking like I would have in my apartment in Louisville I opened the front door to let the smoke out. The problem? The door to the apartment in Louisville led outside. The door to this apartment? To a hallway. Inside a four story building. With a very large smoke detector. Then it happened. The building’s fire alarm started blaring through the hall and my eyes instantly filled with tears. My roommate opened the screen door in hopes to help while understandably dying from laughter, and then removed the pan of what used to be bacon from the STILL LIT eye on the stove which I had left there in my mad dash to try and stop the smoke. If only Gordon Ramsey could have seen me.  I hear a voice booming down the hallway, “Well smells like someone burnt breakfast!” Yes sir, thank you for that astute realization. He was the maintenance supervisor for the building and he was less than thrilled with me. “YOU OPENED THE DOOR?? Never open the door!!!” Clearly I planned on following that advice in the future.  Suddenly I heard footsteps above us and see a neighbor running down the hall carrying her purse in one hand and her cat in another. My new best friend the maintenance supervisor hollered in her direction, “Don’t worry dear it’s not a real fire, someone just opened her door and let the smoke into the hallway!”  I popped my head out of the door and said, “Hey girl! That’s my bad!” Then panic hit me and I called the front office desperate to make sure they didn’t let the fire department come. “Oh honey don’t worry, this type of thing happens all the time! I’ll call them,” the lady told me. As I hit the end call button I heard my roommate laugh and say “too late!” I ran to the bathroom with tears streaming down my face when I heard the voice, “Wow! This smoke is thick!” The firemen were in the apartment. I had caused the fire department to come because I couldn’t use a gas stove properly and because I left the dang bacon on the flame! When I came out of the bathroom I just laid across the living room floor and then we had chips and salsa for breakfast. When the literal smoke had cleared it dawned on me, we had a blanket fort set up in our living room. Yep, a blanket fort. Both couches were turned over and blankets were tied around like we were six years old. So not only did I cause a huge scene, but I added to a list of “guess what we saw at work today.” 

I was off to a rough start. 

Things were looking up though, I had a date that night! His name was Anthony so we nicknamed him Tony the Tiger almost instantly. I fixed my hair, added three coats of mascara and was determined to have a much better evening than I had morning. He was nice, so nice in fact that I could almost overlook the fact that he was wearing seersucker shorts. We sat at the bar and drank a couple of beers while watching football and talking about our families. He was funny, bold, and had a calf tattoo of two dragons that I kept trying to pretend wasn’t there. All in all it was a perfectly nice date and he asked me to meet him the next day so we could watch the Tennessee v Alabama game together. I was getting ready to head to meet him when Tony sent me text saying he would only be able to stay until half time. Umm. Okay. When I arrived he, wearing a different pair of seersucker shorts, said he had left our date last night and had to pick up a buddy from the airport so he was feeling really tired. It was nearly 4 in the afternoon on a Saturday so I was a bit confused as to how sleeping in all morning left him so sleepy. He proceeded to spend the rest of the date on his phone looking up every so often to smile and wink at me while his thumbs continued to dance across his phone screen. I am unsure of what we spoke about because to be honest I’m not sure we actually spoke. Again, he is the one who asked me to meet him and yet somehow I was in the middle of a speed dating session. Once halftime arrived, right on cue he got the check, hugged me, and left. I moved to the bar to finish watching the game and texted my roommates to let them know I had just been abandoned mid date. They met me for dinner and as soon as we got home I received a text from Tony:

“Tough game huh?”

“Yeah, it was hard to watch for sure”

“It sure was”

“Did you finish watching it at your house?”

“Oh. Well. I had some things to do so I left it on in the background”

“While you napped?”

“Yeah. I mean, I was napping and doing other stuff while watching the game”

Translation: I had planned to meet another girl and over scheduled myself so I left in the middle of the date with a bad excuse and then basically told on myself when I said I was simultaneously napping and doing other things. 

“Quite the jam packed schedule you had today”

“Yeah”

So I sent the peace sign emoji and he never texted back. 

A few days later I was in a much better mood as I walked out the door with one of my roommates headed to breakfast, because I was still on strike from the stove that betrayed me. As I walked into the parking lot I searched for my car. Searched. Searched. No car to be found we headed to the front office to find out which towing company was about to collect some money from me. The man working behind the desk smiled and greeted us. I mentioned the car and he said, 

“Well we don’t keep a list of what gets towed so I can’t say for sure that’s what happened.” 
"Oh. Oh fantastic so it may have been stolen?"

 When my eyes widened he said, “But I can go get my manager.” Our complex had only issued two parking passes to our apartment even though there were now three people living there. I spoke with the property manager who refused to issue another pass as it was their policy to only give one parking pass per bedroom and since we were in a two bedroom apartment and my roommate Megan and I were sharing a room, they would not give us a third pass. Their reasoning? 

“We cannot guarantee you a spot.” 
"Okay, but could you give us the opportunity to find a spot in the lot and if they are all full then park on the street?"
 “No because we can’t guarantee that you’ll get a spot.” 

I explained we didn’t need the guarantee just the chance to be able to park there without our cars being towed from the place we payed to live, especially since there were consistently open spots each night in our lot. I even offered to pay for an extra pass. Nope. No budging. So we headed to the towing company so I could fork over $160 and then order several mimosas with breakfast. 

That was my third week here. It seemed as though my welcome wagon had lost a wheel or two. New Hampshire had managed to take several punches into those twenty-one days and there were plenty left to come. 

Thank you for taking the time to share in my story! I hope you’ll come back next week as we dive into winter. 

Xo, 

J