First Apartment

When I was 18, I moved into my first apartment with my brother Jeff. It was a good time at first, but there were a few downfalls to having my first place. It was a 3 mile walk from my job, I had no money when I first moved in, so that was not going to change after the fact. The biggest downfall was the complete destruction of my relationship with my brother. There were valuable lessons with the move, and I absorbed all the lessons that life threw my way.

The months that I lived in the Ledge-wood apartment on Ohio street in Bangor, were from November until March. These are the coldest, and stormiest months of the year, this made my 3 mile one way walk cold, and brutal with every step. There was close to a mile stretch where there was no side walk, so I had to weave with traffic trying to stay out of the wet snow on the side of the road, while not being run down by traffic. There were certain days where the sidewalks didn't even get plowed, so trucking through 6 inches of snow or more was tiring. I always had to bring a backpack with a pair of dry socks, my work sneakers, and some dry pants so work didn't have to be as miserable as the walk to and from. This was my routine until I moved into my second apartment in April.

Since I was flat broke when I moved out of my parents house, I then went into the negative. I had my first credit card, that I only bought food with, but I had no way of making my monthly payments on the credit card, so I continued to fall behind. I could not continue with school, because I had no car, and a job that was too far away to make it to and from work and school. This was a low part of life for me, losing money out the window, and not being able to maintain a stable livelihood. This was not a healthy lifestyle for me to be living, along with the stress from everyday life, I was headed south, and I was hitting every rock on the way down.

My brother and I always clashed when we were kids, but we had our parents there to split the two of us up. We could never maintain healthy communication, we just offended each other, even if we weren't trying to do so. By the end, we had several altercations get physical, and we were on the brink of killing each other. The final straw was one late night, Jeff came home from work and he was in a shitty mood. He was taking everything out on me, and I was already sick of him. We ended up blowing up, and I left and said that I would be back the next day to get my belongings. So I left, came back the next day to find all of my belongings in the driveway, and the lock on the door was changed. This was the last time that him and I talked for close to 6 months, we have both been working hard on rebuilding our relationship, but it taught the both of us many valuable lessons about family, friendship, and people the are compatible to live with.

After I moved out of the apartment, my new roommates and I got along much better then I did living with my brother. Since there were more of us living in 1 apartment, rent was cheaper, so I started to have a little bit more of a flexible income than previous months. Along side with my new apartment was much closer to my job, less than a mile walk, compared to a 3 mile hike. I am still living in this apartment, over two years later, and I am getting ready to move into my new place starting June 1st. I can't wait to see what life lessons will be thrown my way this time around.