City Living

Ever feel like at the time you gave up something it felt like it was for the best. Yet there is still a small ounce of remorse left after all is said and done?

Ironic.

Cousin "T" is in transition from returning to DC from her life in New York. She's right on schedule to graduate from F.I.T. in May but has been making moves in coming back home to live. A few weeks ago I learned that she purchased a condo. My heart was torn about the news. While I was happy for her, the more I learned about where she was living I began to realize it was the same opportunity I had given up a year ago.

City Vista are newly developed condos built along the edge of Chinatown. Equiped with a grocery store, a cleaners, a bank, a gym, and few other local hot spots and restaurants and rooftop terrance/pool area, it's a city person's dream, especially since it's in the mix of downtown living. As the complex was being built I entered a lottery. The units available through the lottery were set aside as affordable housing and of course based on an income scale. I entered into the lottery right around the time but just before I found out I was pregnant. A year later, a few months after I had The Snickerdoodle, I received a letter in the mail. I had been picked from the lottery to own one of the condos.

With no steady job and being a new mom, at the time I figured there was no way I could afford to pay on a mortage plus condo fees and of course a parking space in the garage. So I turned it down. I let it go. It hurt (a bit) to let it go, because it was part of my dream or my goal..my emancipation from this house. Still I would have had to figure in new furniture for two and other expenses. I just wasn't ready.

When I heard the news about "T" I wanted to call her immediately and contgradulate her, but my heart hurt. I felt bad that I couldn't be fully happy with "T's" new home because of that ping of jealously. Sure I tried to play it off and do the whole Erykah Badu thing...yanno claim that my eyes were green because I eat a lot of vegetables. Still I didn't want to call her and fake the happiness. I wanted it to be real. So I waited.

As 2008 faded away I let all of that emotional gunk I had been dealing with since November roll away with it, including that stupid green eye thing. So today when I got the invite to ride along with my cousin to T's new place I wasted no time in getting ready and hopped into the ride. 

Her two bedroom is lovely and quaint. Though not fully furnished, she pretty much has her bedroom in place and the walls throughout are painted (this pretty brown shade. Chestnut? and this lovely green in one area). My (sincere) happiness for her oozed as I washed her gush with excitement of embarking on something new and moving around her kitchen being a natural hostess to the rest of the family that had gathered tonight. She even took us on a tour of the 12th floor where the rooftop terrace is located.

We even had the opportunity to talk about my missed opportunity with Cita Vista. Of course she believes that I should have went ahead and followed through with the lottery winning and for what she was saying I could have been missing out on a blessing. Yet when I thought about it I figured it probably would have caused another big financial mess for me when I clearly wasn't ready. Besides, I think what mainly scared me off from the opportunity was the fragile housing market and how people were getting taken with the "creative financing" gimmick that was going around. I always figured that if I wanted to own a home I wanted it the old fashion way of having a FIXED mortage.

Also, when I think more if it, I think I wasn't jealous so much of T's residence, being a place where I once wanted to live. I think it was more of an add of to things that I had noticed. That being, how people in my life are/were progressing and that latter part of 2008 caught me in a runt, stuck, angry and mad. I actually mentioned this to Ms. C when I had my little meltdown. I felt bad because I wanted to be happy for people in my life and their progress but I couldn't be because I was just in an iky place.

So tonight as I celebrated the new year with family, I felt good. Good because T is back home, even though she still has to go back and forth to New York to take her left over classes until graduation. Good because I feel that iky-ness is passing over. Good because I can still have my piece of the urban pie, I just have to take the long route in getting there. Needless to say, when I am ready I'm aiming for a house. Capitol Hill has been my goal for a long while. It's residential, yet urban with good schools nearby, on the edge of downtown, but has it's own hot spots and I love the energy in and around Eastern Market.

Still.... we shall see.

Where I currently reside isn't bad. It's DC but sometimes it feels like the forgotten portion. It's always been an ambition of mine to move closer to the "nerve" of the city. It kind of sucks when you do live East of the Anacostia River and need a cab to get home. Plenty of times cab drivers had refused to take me home after a late night of partying in Adams Morgan, Georgetown or visiting friends that lived uptown. You know it's bad anytime you try to convince the cab driver that you live in a good part of SE. The only way I would make it home if I ended up with an old black man that grew in DC or a young black guy that probaby was packing and wasn't afraid to come into SE. If I couldn't neither one, I had to catch the train and still walk six to ten block home.

Thank God that I have a car now.