The Sweetest Years: The Sweetest Years Moves Back Home

First order of business: You can now follow me on Twitter (although the grandma in me is very confused as to how to use this modern technology)! Follow me at: @SweetestYears

Since I last wrote, which was ages and ages ago, "The Sweetest Years" has moved from Philadelphia back to the place I like to call home. Before attending law school in Philadelphia, I lived with my (then) lovely boyfriend in Logan Circe in Washington, DC, and then in Rosslyn, VA, right outside of Georgetown.

I'd like to take you back to what our life was like in good old Rosslyn, and reminisce a bit. Yes, this blog contains recipes, baking tips and cooking blunders, but I'd also like it to be a place where I can blog about relationships, life in DC, and more:

When my boyfriend moved to Rosslyn, I was living in a tiny apartment in SOHO, NYC. My bedroom was so small, that when you walked into it, the door immediately hit the base of the bed. I would often open the door, walk in, and accidentally run into it. My poor shins were quite bruised those few months. During my time there, I worked as a waitress at Planet Hollywood in Times Square. I catered to low tipping tourists while wearing a very funny looking tie, came home to my tiny room, fell asleep to "Weeds" on Netflix, and woke up in the early morning hours to join the long lines of bite sized brunettes that looped around New York City sidewalks. I would wait hours (upon hours), to enter a tiny room to sing my 16 bars for a table lined with crinkled and critical faces. After hearing "thank you" I would turn in my character shoes for restaurant sneakers and repeat the process.

The light of my week was always sharing an outside table with my lovely man at different SOHO cafes, talking and laughing over a plate of grilled octopus sprinkled with lemon juice, or a generous portion of tiramisu. While shopping all alone in the corner Korean grocery one morning, I moved to the empty freezer aisle, picked up my boxy cell phone, and told my boyfriend it was over. My relationship with New York City had come to a close. My love of the theatre, of performing, of singing and acting felt less like a thrill, less like happiness, and more like an exhausting job. I was moving to DC. I would crash my boyfriend's 400 square foot "man apartment," meant only as a place to hang his proverbial hat at the end of the day, and turn the postage stamp sized apartment into a home for two. It would be a test of our strength. Could we live together in one room, no where to run, no where to hide? It turns out we could.

We lived in that apartment for a full year. It was a challenge sometimes. If we argued, there was no door to hide behind, no space to run to. We had to resolve our issues on the spot, and if we didn't, someone ended up taking refuge in the closet, which usually resulted in a realization of how silly our disagreement was in the first place, one person joining the other on the floor of the closet, and both of us laughing at our tiny little home. We had far more wonderful times there than challenging ones. I had my favorite birthday party in that apartment. 20 of our closest friends sitting on our bed and on tables, bunches of balloons floating up to the low hanging ceiling, and laughter that could never sound louder than it did in that tiny space. It was in that room that we planned our first real vacation together, perched on our bed googling the cheapest way to travel to Spain.

This was the first place I ever felt "home" after leaving my childhood home. When I came from NY to this apartment, my lovely boyfriend had taped together computer paper and made me a makeshift "Welcome Home" sign that hung above our window until it fell to the floor. That apartment and DC made us closer, and we are so happy to be back three years later. No longer girlfriend and boyfriend, but husband and wife. We have 400 more square feet, a brand new puppy, and a bright future ahead.

Some throwback photos from the year of the 400 sq. foot apartment: