On October 5, my countdown began: 30 days until my 30th birthday. In honor of this, on each of the 30 days leading up to my birthday I will recount one memory from the past 30 years… either one that has helped define me, one that makes me laugh, one that makes me think, one that encourages me…  or maybe a little of everything. If possible, I will post a photo to go along with the memory.

It’s my 30/30/30 Project: 30 years. 30 memories. 30 days.

Here is my memory for Day #13:

The day I found my apartment in NYC was memorable for me because it was the first day that Brian referred to me as his girlfriend… even though I was in the process of moving away from home.

I forget what my Dad had going on that day (because he would never voluntarily not come on an apartment-hunting venture with any of his kids), but it was just me, my Mom and Brian. While Brian and I had not yet declared ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend, we had been spending a lot of time together and each of us definitely knew how the other felt.

I had two appointments set up with roommates in Midtown on the West Side and one set up with a roommate on the Upper East Side. One of the girls I met on the West Side was someone I totally clicked with, but I realized somewhere during those three meetings that not only would I prefer living on the Upper East Side because of its proximity to where I’d be working, but also that I would really rather live on my own.

Meanwhile, Brian just calmly sat in the back seat of the car as my Mom not-so-calmly traversed Manhattan trying to keep our schedule. (Driving from one side of the city to the other when Central Park is closed to traffic isn’t the easiest of tasks.) When we needed to park illegally so that Mom and I could go meet potential roommates and see potential apartments, Brian graciously offered to stay in the car in case any parking police came by.

By the time I figured out that I wanted to look at places without roommates, it was getting to be the afternoon and we were all hungry. I had found a studio that looked nice on Craigslist, and I made an appointment to meet the broker. With about an hour to kill, Mom, Brian and I went to a cafe across from the apartment. It was a beautiful late summer day, so we sat outside in the sun. And I remember just falling in love with the neighborhood.

It was quiet yet active. Peaceful yet bustling. Quaint but city. People were walking around… families pushing strollers, couples walking dogs, kids skateboarding on the sidewalks. I hoped that the apartment gave me the same kind of “home” feeling, and as soon as I walked in, I knew that it did. It was the first place Brian was actually able to see that day – no longer banished to the car since we were able to find a legal parking space. And we all agreed that it was the best place – location-wise (see previous comments), convenience-wise (10 blocks from work) and sanity-wise (living! by! myself!).

(The graciousness and calmness and accommodativeness that Brian showed that day, I’ve come to realize, is just who he is.)

On the way home from NYC that day, Brian called one of his friends who lives in the city to say hello. Explaining to his friend what he had been doing there was the first time Brian referred to me as his girlfriend. I remember my Mom kind of looking over me when he said it, like, “Is this the correct information?” – and finding that I really liked the thought of it.

*Pieces of this post were taken from an old post I had written about finding this apartment.