second Thursday in Atlanta

I was going to write about my first few days of work (which have gone really well!) but I realized that, that isn't what has been on my mind. It's been my living situation that's been on my mind.

I love my apartment building: location, amenities, layouts, but I am coming to admit to myself that I really dislike my actual unit. It's super close to the street and is really noisy, like REALLY noisy. I signed my lease sight unseen which I think is something that can come with the territory of moving long distance (though I would encourage others to take a moment and ask friends or contacts in the area to look on their behalf). Needless to say I wouldn't have chosen this unit if I had seen it in person.

I have been trying to convince myself that it would be okay and I would simply get used to the noise. But in reality I've been really stressing out about it and have found my anxiety of living there bleeding into others areas of my life (this tendency probably wouldn't surprise my close friends). Finally I decided that I would raise my concerns to my leasing office and simply ask if I had any options to move within the building. 

Turns out with a few fees I should have some options to move within the next few weeks or so. I should learn more details tomorrow. 

Of course this is a simply thing to do but being in the middle of the situation I couldn't see that clearly. Meanwhile this small annoyance was turning into the enormous concern that was taking over too much of my mind. And learning that I had some options to change my situation was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. 

Later today I chatted with a friend who has also done a recent move and I reluctantly told her about this experience; reluctantly because I was almost embarrassed by the situation. She told me that she ended up crying herself to sleep the first night in her new apartment after moving cross-country because she walked into the place only to find that the dishwasher leaked, she had no shower pressure, and one of the sinks sprayed water. She was overwhelmed by thinking about how awful the next year would be living in that apartment. But after letting her landlord know the next day he fixed everything. Magically all the stress about a part of a move that really shouldn't be of any concern disappeared. 

We joked about how we both immediately went to the worst case scenario but also how easy it was to get lost in the intensity of our moves and life changes and to not see clearly. This is one thing I am going to do my best to try to avoid doing through the rest of my transition, and I would encourage others to try to do the same. I'll keep you posted on how that works for me!