The Last Goodbye
Mar. 28th, 2004 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kribbanI almost posted about this yesterday but it was still to raw.
I said goodbye to the old flat yesterday. Malin and I had made a deal: she would carry down boxes into the basement if I cleaned out the old flat. I went a couple of runs on Friday and then four (or five?) runs yesterday. I took down everything that was left - plants, posters, lamps - and threw away everything that needed throwing away. I managed to pull the thermometer from the balcony door, and took Malin's bicycle that stood there, and after trying for maybe an hour total I finally managed to disassemble the lamp in the bed room on my last trip over.
The last run was about six o'clock in the evening. The other had been rather pleasant but now it was getting dark outside and it felt very emotional and eerie.
So many memories washed over me during yesterday's runs to the old flat.
It was worst the last time, so much so that I decided to take all the things that were left out of the apartment and make to runs back to the building rather than go into the flat a second time.
I had brought a pen to finish the note I had started the second to last time. We have learned, bitterly, that there are certain things the landlord won't fix no matter how the tenant has fucked them up (hint, hint!!!) and Malin encouraged me. The pen had died after I had written Malin's name and when I told her she said "Then you're just going to have to bring another pen and finish it!"
On the door frame in the small clothes chamber where we have had so many moments, I wrote:
Here lived Malin & Kristina for 5 years (1999-2004) and were very happy.
I then said goodbye to the whole flat. I kissed the mirror we had to leave behind and the kitchen fan, and I had to say goodbye to the kitchen twice because as I stood in the hallway I felt I had to go back and see it again. It was all so sad somehow. I loved that kitchen. We've had so many nice moments there, cooking and talking and eating.
I mean, five years that's a long time. Of course I have moved once before, from the house I had lived in for seventeen years to a flat with my parents but that's different.
These are such important years. These are my first five years with Malin - six if you count the first visit. I immediately loved that flat - how it embodied her somehow. These five years are also my entire time at college and university.
They are the first years of my adult life - my really adult life. Living with Malin, 1000 km from my parents... All the people we've met, all the friends who have come and gone. All the obsessions we've had, the phases I've gone through, the people I've met online... All the dishes and pastry we've learned to make. Getting Douglas.
So much is rolled into those years.
I loved that apartment from the first time I saw it in July 1998 and I was still loving it as I said goodbye yesterday. :-(
Last night as we were going to our respective beds I started crying. Malin held me and comforted me and I told her everything about how I felt.
I said goodbye to the old flat yesterday. Malin and I had made a deal: she would carry down boxes into the basement if I cleaned out the old flat. I went a couple of runs on Friday and then four (or five?) runs yesterday. I took down everything that was left - plants, posters, lamps - and threw away everything that needed throwing away. I managed to pull the thermometer from the balcony door, and took Malin's bicycle that stood there, and after trying for maybe an hour total I finally managed to disassemble the lamp in the bed room on my last trip over.
The last run was about six o'clock in the evening. The other had been rather pleasant but now it was getting dark outside and it felt very emotional and eerie.
So many memories washed over me during yesterday's runs to the old flat.
It was worst the last time, so much so that I decided to take all the things that were left out of the apartment and make to runs back to the building rather than go into the flat a second time.
I had brought a pen to finish the note I had started the second to last time. We have learned, bitterly, that there are certain things the landlord won't fix no matter how the tenant has fucked them up (hint, hint!!!) and Malin encouraged me. The pen had died after I had written Malin's name and when I told her she said "Then you're just going to have to bring another pen and finish it!"
On the door frame in the small clothes chamber where we have had so many moments, I wrote:
Here lived Malin & Kristina for 5 years (1999-2004) and were very happy.
I then said goodbye to the whole flat. I kissed the mirror we had to leave behind and the kitchen fan, and I had to say goodbye to the kitchen twice because as I stood in the hallway I felt I had to go back and see it again. It was all so sad somehow. I loved that kitchen. We've had so many nice moments there, cooking and talking and eating.
I mean, five years that's a long time. Of course I have moved once before, from the house I had lived in for seventeen years to a flat with my parents but that's different.
These are such important years. These are my first five years with Malin - six if you count the first visit. I immediately loved that flat - how it embodied her somehow. These five years are also my entire time at college and university.
They are the first years of my adult life - my really adult life. Living with Malin, 1000 km from my parents... All the people we've met, all the friends who have come and gone. All the obsessions we've had, the phases I've gone through, the people I've met online... All the dishes and pastry we've learned to make. Getting Douglas.
So much is rolled into those years.
I loved that apartment from the first time I saw it in July 1998 and I was still loving it as I said goodbye yesterday. :-(
Last night as we were going to our respective beds I started crying. Malin held me and comforted me and I told her everything about how I felt.
