this isn't the apartment i moved into...

So I've lived in my apartment for a whole year now (A WHOLE YEAR!!!) and I still love my place. However, I feel like I don't love it quite as much as I did initially. My life has changed in drastic ways since I first moved in here.

When I first moved in here, I was coming out of a relationship with a guy I thought I was going to marry. But he had other plans and one day, he dumped me out of the blue by leaving a letter on our kitchen counter. I amazed myself by gaining extraordinary strength (stemming from extreme anger) and getting my ass in gear. I could've moved back home with my parents, but instead I went apartment hunting. I had decided to start a new life, all by myself. I didn't need that super-christian-so-totally-not-my-type-boyfriend-of-2-years. I found this place. I immediately fell in love with it. I was working at a new job making more money than I had ever made (those days are most certainly over) and I was having a purely sexual affair with a guy I later learned was schizophrenic. But I digress.
Anyway, the day I moved, I was helped by my parents and my brother. It was a fast move, and I stole almost all of my ex's belongings (those that weren't stolen were destroyed). And when everything was in my apartment and everyone was gone, and it was just me and my new home, I blared some Clash and started arranging.
I got everything where I wanted in that one night, and had pizza with my then-best-friend. I had never been happier.

A year later, my apartment is a fucking mess, I am in a new and improved relationship with a man that I hope to have babies with, and I have a new (and crappier) job. I long for the old days. The days when this place and I were just getting acquainted and I was a free woman for the first time of my life.
I have been trying to re-live those days in small but powerful ways.

When I first moved in here, I was washing my hair with mint shampoo and conditioner, which I have decided to start using again, not because it's particularly good stuff ('cause it isn't), but because it brings me back to the happiest days of my life. I also blare the Clash because it brings me back. I drink yellowtail chardonnay and it brings me back. I buy myself a bouquet of flowers from Botanika, I wear this particular dress with a pair of converse all star high tops and that brings me back. It's funny that these small things improve my day just because they remind me of how happy I was a year ago, when I first moved in.
And a year ago, I didn't really even think myself that happy. But I was. And I see that now. I guess it's true what they say; you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Things have changed so much since my first day in this apartment. I've certainly grown up a lot, and I love the person that I've become over the last year. I've also started myself a little family (with Breakfast). I have quit smoking and I no longer do the abundance of drugs I used to. I owe it all to that stupid jerk's letter on the kitchen counter, and to my super - for taking a chance on an unknown kid. ;)

I guess what I'm trying to say is..
Apartment of mine, we've drifted apart. I'm so sorry for that. I will take better care to ensure the survival of our relationship, and I will not let Breakfast's poop sit around in the corner for days the way I have been. *MWAH!* I loves ya, baby. It's been a good year.