It’s a strange thing to live in an apartment.
Alli and I live in an apartment that’s on the second floor of what was last year a pale-yellow building owned by Denver Seminary and this year is a modern-gray, forest-green building owned by a development company that I think is headquartered in Chicago (although it is also possible that they’re headquartered in Colorado or that they exist only in the ether – I’ve never personally spoken to them, it’s hard to tell from their website, and I’ve deleted all of their emails).
The sale of the apartments took place last year. It happened suddenly and caused a bit of a stir among students, especially the ones who happened to live on what used to be campus.
“Where will we live?” some of them asked at the first meeting the seminary held so that students could pretend to influence the outcome of the sales process.
“You can live in the apartments still,” replied the seminary generously. “They will just cost more and be a different color.”
“Don’t you care about fostering community?” asked the students angrily.
“Yes,” replied the seminary graciously. “That’s why we’re having this meeting, and, in a way you’ll come to understand more fully when you’re older and have tried your hand at life, it is also why we’re selling the apartments.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do about this?” asked the students in frustration.
“No,” replied the seminary kindly. “But we will hold another meeting in case you have any more questions. We value your feedback!”
The sale went through almost exactly a year ago, at which point Alli and I ceased to be residents at Denver Seminary and promptly became constituents of Switchback on Platte, a change which costs $300 per month but also made us the beneficiaries of 12 new, color-coordinated lawn chairs.
I don’t mean to complain. The rationale for the sale was understandable. The buildings were getting old, so rather than pouring millions of dollars into on-campus housing that will probably be superfluous in ten years when education is entirely online, the seminary chose to sell and ensure its long-term financial security. There was wisdom to it.
Still, something is missing from this place now.
Honestly, the campus community was never quite what Alli and I had hoped for. But I used to know that the people I saw at the mailboxes or in the laundry room were in some way connected to the seminary, and so I knew in some way we were all connected together.
Now that loose social tie is cut. The apartment complex is, more than ever, a place of boxed lives lived close together but kept far apart. The deepest relationships are silent head nods to people you recognize from their weekly struggle to carry groceries across the parking lot.
This isn’t the fault of our new, probably-Chicago-based ownership. They try. I think the other month they had donuts in the leasing office.
This is my fault.
Because I know that on the other side of my kitchen wall, separated from my coffee pot by about twelve inches, there’s a whole world of human experience being lived by a man and a woman and a little girl, and I don’t know any of their names. When they moved in this past fall, I helped the man carry a cabinet up to their living room. After we’d bumped our way up the stairs and set it down, I shook his hand and told him he could knock on our door if he ever needed anything. He smiled and said the same went for me.
Apparently neither one of us has ever needed anything, because those were the last words I’ve spoken to him.
I saw the woman and the little girl in the grocery store last week, and I started to wave to them. But then it became clear that they didn’t recognize me, so I transitioned the movement into a casual reach for a package of butter that I didn’t need.
I could’ve said hello, anyway. I should have. Instead I pretended to look down at my grocery list until they passed, then hastily pushed my cart down the cereal aisle before realizing that I needed to return the butter.
I drove back to the apartment in the rain as evening rolled in, thinking about the depths within each person and wishing we were all less lonely. When I got back, I saw them again. The girl was dancing around in the parking lot and the woman was tired. She struggled with her bags, fumbled with her keys, and said something sharp to her daughter before they both disappeared up the stairs and into the door next to mine. “Well, next time,” I told myself, “I’ll make sure to at least nod at them.”
I wish I was the kind of person who actively drew others together, someone who could wave without reserve and knock on neighbors’ doors whether I needed anything or not. I wish my community wasn’t always shifting under my feet. Someday, maybe, my home and heart will be more secure.
In the meantime, I’m grateful for what I have – or at least I tell myself I should be, which I hope counts for half. But it’s a strange thing to live in an apartment.
