ROOMMATE SEARCH
I've spent the last two and a half weeks finding a roommate that could move-in with us as soon as our current lease gets renewed on July 1, 2017! Living in an apartment in New York City can be a very interesting process. In only two years of living in New York City, I've already gone through apartment hunting and the other side of apartment hunting: roommate hunting. I've met a number of interesting personalities as I've welcomed them to our apartment and showed them the available room, bathroom, talked to them about money, etc. The seemingly endless posting to various groups and roommate apps, the waiting, the weeding out, the silent treatment, the eventual rejection and the panic that comes with knowing that the deadline for paying the landlord is nearing and you have yet to find decent prospects.
All is well now. We've found a winner in the nick of time! However stressful and inconvenient these "hunting" situations can be, they provide interesting metaphors for life. I've been in several "searching" journeys by now, in many different forms. One of the common patterns in these journeys are the not-quite, almost, someone who'll say yes and back out soon enough, the waiting but will never actualize, the tempting easy way out (a test in patience, resilience and integrity), and in the nick of time, something or someone comes along that'll check all the boxes or will clear the path. And no matter how annoying, painful, or draining the process might be - to continue the search with an openness. Once the thing sought gets found, all the other options seem to fade away and you feel the huge wave subsiding. Sometimes you get a new wave, too.