I went to the apartment to continue the cleanup effort. Most everything has been moved - I was going to bring boxes with me, but the Camaro isn't exactly an ideal car for that sort of thing, and I decided eventually against it.

However, I cleaned all the rooms, and took out about five bags of trash from the kitchen.

I'm writing because I felt a certain sense of loss, leaving the apartment...

I mean, this is a much better neighborhood - I'll be comfortable having Kaela here and running about, whereas before I worried if I brought her to the apartment, she'd face the possibility of getting caught in a cross-fire or something. I've even got a bike for her to ride while she's here - which I hope will be in June sometime.

And the house is bigger, with Mike able to have his own room, and plenty of room for anything else we might want to do. We've got tons of "home improvement" planned already, and this time, when we improve something, it will be worth something... Rather than improving something for the apartment that we have no real stake in.

We'll be paying rent, but unlike rent, with a mortgage payment, you're actually just investing the money into the value of your home. You're paying back a loan, rather than just giving your money away to a company that cares exactly one whit about you. Basically you elude the phantom of "black-hole" renting - you actually get something for the money you pay.

There's room for the dogs to play, room to have a cookout (which will be next Saturday) and two bathrooms, which is practically a necessity with Mike and Heather. None of which was a possibility in the apartment.

But still...

I've lived in that apartment for the better part of two years - a lot of changes have affected me since moving in there.

I've become a more balanced person - a more stable, reliable person. More than once this diary has been an example of the instability that plagued me, and I've more or less purged myself of those issues. I'm more sure of myself, more understanding of my limitations and more optimistic of my potential.

I met the love of my life while living there, and I've experienced so much there of what "should be" - the day-to-day "mundaneness" that so many people hate, but I crave. A life-changing experience, to be sure. The living experience of loving.

I've gained more than a dozen pets - many might think it too much, but it's really just a continuation of the spirituality that I found while living in that apartment... A finalization of a path I started on years ago. I know who I am spiritually, and I learned it in front of books and the computer and friends while living there, in that shoddy apartment.

I've learned a great deal of temperance in that apartment - putting up with things that would once have made me flip my lid. I've learned "anger management."

I experienced what will probably remain another life-changing event with the inclusion of a third into an erotic escapade. Though I will not miss the apartment, or the neighborhood, I will always remember that moment in time, when I had them both just laying in the bed with me. Though the drama later may have poisoned it for some, I feel as though I am a more complete person for it.

I began a club that I also ended, right there in that apartment, and have since decided to renew the site as a resource, rather than a club. It'll be a work in progress once I have the time, and the creation of that club was one test that I had to know when to cede... I feel it was a success, regardless of the outcome, because it helped me to learn my abilites and desires that much more.

There's a lot of history at that apartment, and I feel a certain sense of melancholy for leaving a place where so much has happened.

The new house is getting "lived-in" already, and it's a better place, and a new place to make new memories. I hope the memories I keep from the apartment are eclipsed by the memories I'll make here.

I'm optimistic about it.