Have I mentioned that when I am not a romance author, I am a landlord? This week, landlording has been taking up an enormous amount of time, so I thought I would share that piece of my life with you along with six love lessons I have learned from owning my condo..
In 2000, I bought a beautiful, newly constructed condominium in North Carolina when I di
vorced after 17 years of marriage. While most of the world worried about Y2K, I worried about picking out furniture and paint colors on my own for the first time in nearly two decades.
photo slobin.ru
I loved that condo, loved living in it, loved setting up house on my own and discovering me – not a wife but a full blown person able to stand on her own two feet. The more decisions I made, the better they felt. I gained more confidence and a stronger sense of individuality. The first lesson I learned from that condo was to love myself. That is the most important love I will ever have. It is the love I protect and nurture every single day.
Loving Where You Live
Choosing that furniture and those paint colors allowed me to become very loving about a place too. Being alone in my space was heaven. Sitting cuddled into the corner of my bright orange sofa, I enjoyed the views of treetops from my window, the smell of the new construction, and having a trash compactor. I loved eating cereal for dinner and potato chips for lunch without having to explain myself to anyone. I relished the opportunity to throw open the doors, hosting dinner parties, cocktail parties and brunches.
I have fond memories of the neighborhood congregating for warmth in my kitchen during an ice-storm induced power outage. Everyone brought their food that would not survive without refrigeration along with candles as I was the only one to have upgraded to a gas stove on moving in. We relied on the gas fireplace and each other for warmth, that stove and companionship. I remember tons of laughs that night and the moment my cat walked in front of a candle and caught his tail on fire. We all laughed until we cried – except the cat, of course. He was fine.
People who Love You back, and some that don’t
I had outstanding neighbors in that small complex, we threw great parties, went on cruises in the Caribbean together and played the slots in Atlantic City. My friends called us “the beautiful people” and we were. We laughed and danced, played pool and just hung out together on each other’s front steps. I learned the love of friendship living there. I really appreciated the new-found love of friends discovered later in life, with no history together, friendships formed and kept to this day. For those of you who have tried to make new friends as an adult, you can appreciate how special it was for so many of us to bond together like this. I am still in touch with several of those neighbors and look forward to having one – a fledgling author – as a guest blogger soon.
I acquired a loving kind of compassion renting that apartment. My tenant often fell behind on her rent, she was between jobs, she was ill. I could have pressed for the rent, but I let her slide several times and usually she came back a few months later with the back rent. I say usually because it is too soon to say what she will do about the remaining money she owes me. But I felt a friendship for her and I am a romantic, because I allowed that friendship to trump timely rent payments several times.
I even found a romantic love there – the traditional kind. It was that love that took me away from that special place. I fell for and followed my neighbor to New Jersey and then California. Friends called us ‘the power couple’ and we were great together for many years. Then we weren’t so great anymore and we went our separate ways. Because I had learned love of self, I landed on my feet here in Chicago, where I learned to love my family and friends from childhood. I reconnected and rediscovered people I thought I always knew. Their love turned out to be more heartwarming than I could have imagined.
You Can’t Go Home Again…
I still love that condo – I miss it. I think about moving back into it and have not been able to sell it. But I love my Chicago life too. This week has been a challenge as the condo is empty and available for the first time in a long time. That is forcing me to think of the alternatives. My loves all call to me, and I hate having to choose between them.
Until that special place is rented again, lucky me, I don’t have to.
Want to fall in Love with North Carolina too?
North Carolina Tourism https://www.visitnc.com/
NC Vacation Guides https://www.visitnc.com/