Home is where the heart is.

Y'all I'm getting serious about this apartment business.  Wojc and I have pretty much agreed on Portland and so we will be making yet another drive down on saturday to really truly look for a place.  I have about four appointments set up thus far all in the Pearl area and the Hawthorne area. If any Portlanders know of good neighborhoods I should be checking, please let me know! I really don't know the city that well yet.
Anyway, back to "settling down". My last home was my apartment in Harlem over 6 months ago.  For months I have lived in a tent, a truck, under the stars, an empty vacation home, my mom's house, my boyfriend's parents' house, my boyfriend's brother's house, a shack in northern Washington and too many friends' floors to count.  I realized the other night that I haven't been alone in a house for over a month. And  wow, for a person who needs ample "alone time" this has been an adjustment.
Within a week (knock on wood) we will have an apartment.  My nest egg will be slightly smaller and reality will have finally set in. As I approach this permanent move I find myself feeling deeply nostalgic for New York City; because, oddly enough, it is my comfort zone. When I'm not tearing up over NYC skyline footage, I'm getting that old familiar urge to hop on the first plane to India.  Aww, the joys of being a commitment-phobe. This is the end of an era. New York was unexpected and three years passed in the blink of an eye, all my memories feel like a dream and I think, "did that really happen?" With the end of traveling, reality is sinking in that I am no longer a New Yorker who can proudly gripe about rent prices and subway rides. And with this sudden turn to melancholy, I will only look forward to a slower paced, less expensive, happy daily existence.
I desperately long for a place to call my own and know that after the initial stress I will love the stability; however, staying still has never been my strong suit. So now, I push away that urge to roam and settle back in my beloved home state, Oregon.