Flat hunting, I’ve often found, is a bit like dating. You’ll go to view places and, in a limited amount of time, will try to establish whether you could see yourself grow old, or at the very least older, within their walls. You’ll try to look at the details others may miss and, before you even walk in, you’ll attempt to have an honest conversation with yourself about what you really want, and what you’d settle for. After all, compromises will always have to be made.
Still, the real problem with both activities is that there are problems that will only ever become apparent with time. Every flat has a thing. By definition, the thing is not obvious at first. You will only find out about the thing when it is too late, in the same way that you can only, say, find out that your partner is a nightmare to go on holiday with once you’ve grown close enough to go on holiday with them.
As a result, the early days of seeing someone or living somewhere new can be nerve-wracking, as you wait to find out what the thing is, and whether the thing will be a deal breaker.
My old flat had so many things that I’d stopped noticing them. The bedroom had no windows, the kitchen was so small only one person could stand in it at any given time, the ceilings were suffocatingly low and the upstairs neighbours incredibly loud. I had to move. I went to see what would become my new flat last year, and it seemed too good to be true.
It was large and airy and it had a balcony; the bathtub wasn’t the size of a thimble, and there were no upstairs neighbours at all. I decided to take it, but soon asked myself: what will the thing be? I couldn’t find it for the first few months, then it reared its head, as it always does.
As I now put it – when it rains a lot outside the flat, it rains a little bit inside the flat. Parts of the walls get wet and, when it gets really torrential out there, sometimes the carpet will get wet too. It is, at risk of stating the obvious, not great.
It also feels like a hamfisted metaphor for the current state of my life. Everything is, in essence, basically fine. I have a job I enjoy; hobbies that are good for my soul; a social life I love; a family that loves me. I am single, but still at an age where I do not have to despair about my dwindling reproductive capacities quite yet.
The only problem, really, is that I can feel time passing. I had all the things listed above at 31, but I was missing a nice flat and so that gave me a goal; a thing on the horizon to keep walking towards. I am now 32 and a half, and I have it all, but only for a short time. My perfect flat will only remain perfect for maybe another year at most, 18 months if I’m lucky.
After that, the water damage will be so prominent that I know I will have to move again, and it is unlikely that I will find another perfect flat. I am 32 and a half and my life is as good as it gets, for now, but I know I want to meet someone and, if I don’t at some point soon, my life will stop seeming so good.
It would be easy for me to tell myself that I ought to take it one day at a time, but it is easier said than done when you can see the wallpaper start to curl further and further, week after week. My flat is wonderful, but it has a thing, and it is that it acts as a perpetual memento mori. Ah well, nothing’s perfect.
