The Perks of Living in an Apartment

By Jessica Greathouse

Living in an apartment can be hard. The cleaning is hard, the cooking is awful, and let’s be honest, taking out the trash is possibly the worst thing a human being can be forced to do. But today, as you are forced down three flights of stairs to which you will have to begrudgingly trudge right back up, slipping in the slush and the mud, fighting your way to the dumpster with that magically heavy trash bag, consider everything that is good about living in your own place.

You have your own room.

That’s it folks. Whatever you want to do, it is yours. Cry in peace over that failed test? By all means, sob away. Throw your dirty clothing all around you? Let it rain. Engage those who you are romantically interested in? Oh boy, Christmas has come early.

You control the décor.

You can just bet that my closet is filled with leftover Halloween decorations and my living room is filled with cheaply made, dangerous Christmas lights and a six foot tall purple Christmas tree that was 5 dollars at Meijer. If this doesn’t scream classy, then what can?

Your parents and immediate family don’t live with you.

Mom, Dad, I love you, but 18 years was long enough. The rules have dissipated with your arrival into this apartment. Within these four walls, there is no curfew. You can eat what you like. You can bring home men. GASP. And, if at three in the morning, in something that can be more or less described as a stroke of genius, you want to hang all of your Christmas lights, then by all means, you can attempt to do so. Your mother won’t come down the stairs, wakened by your ruckus and inevitable swearing, to ask where she went wrong in raising you and what in the flying hell you could be doing. Here, there is freedom.

So, in a time when all those of us living in an apartment can think of is the holidays, surviving exams, and getting back to your childhood home to enjoy family, friends, and the first real food you’ve had since your last visit, just remember, apartments aren’t all bad.

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