holly wynne approximately

No, I’m not going to give it to you. I just wanted you to know I found one–a place to live and have a Nashville address, that is .

Over two years ago, when I was planning my move to Nashville (the first time), I spent hours online bookmarking apartment complexes that I was going to painstakingly visit to weigh the relative pros and cons. We all know how that turned out–I never found steady employment; I lived sometimes with my folks and sometimes with a friend, and I spent the night on many a couch in the meantime.

I’m not a roommate person. I’m not a live-with-other-people person, period. So, as much as I adore my family and friends, that year was hard. I’d looked so forward to unlocking the restraints that had kept me in Alabama in an oppressive job and to living an anonymous-but-satisfying life in what was to me the big city. I’d get an apartment in town–maybe even downtown–and I couldn’t wait to send everyone notice of my new address, the last line of which would read Nashville, TN 37whatever. Because, you know, the suburbs were fine for my friends who’d moved to the area and found nice apartments, but I…I wanted to live in the city.

It was more than a living arrangements thing. It was more than the job thing. I had spent five years in a town I loved so much, but that had broken my heart in some ways. My job had become my jailer in many ways. I wanted to make it, just me and my cats. I was going to quickly rise in the ranks of the publishing world. Not so I could prove anything to my former employers…er…okay, yeah, it was going to feel good to throw it back in their faces. But that was by far the least of my goals. I had some stuff to prove to myself.

So, it was a blessing of a painful sort when my dad got a job just outside of Nashville, and when I couldn’t seem to find the same in Nashville. As you know, my parents are my heroes. And I needed a place to live. And they didn’t make me pay rent. It worked out in so many ways. But…I wasn’t making it on my own. And my address didn’t say Nashville.

I was again very blessed when a good friend asked me to move in with her for very cheap a few months later. We had a good time, and I will always cherish those few months. But, she didn’t live in Nashville, either. A couple of exits down I-40, yes, but yet again, my address said something other than Nashville. I was grateful, but everyone concerned knew that, had I the means, I wouldn’t be living there.

Then I moved away, and I don’t have to rehash what brought me back.

The bookmarks on rental sites stayed intact until my recent search. I’d been looking for a month and a half or so since I got my job. I’d been waiting for my first couple of paychecks and to pay off a few smaller debts while living with the ‘rents again. The painstaking research had been driving me insane; as I sighed behind my laptop on the couch Saturday morning, paralyzed under the weight of it all, my mom suggested we just go driving.

So, she and I set out in the Focus, hitting up a couple of complexes I’d been interested in before. They were unfruitful. Then, we decided to go slightly further down the road to an area I really hadn’t considered before. I had a few complex names written down, and the first few I visited didn’t have anything available. We kept driving, and I passed up a few on either side of the road.

Something made me brake in front of one particular complex. A half hour or so later, I was in love. An hour or so after that, I was writing deposit checks. I move in the 9th.

The last line of my new address? Nashville, TN 37whatever. It’s been over two years, but I finally have my Nashville address.