Home Away from Home

The sounds of Otis Redding and Frank Sinatra in the background of candlelit, homemade dinners. Of Passion Pit and Vampire Weekend on a snow day filled with very little homework and a whole lot of conversation. Of Lil Wayne and Burlesque while drinking various alcoholic concoctions getting ready for a night out. 

This is the soundtrack of my first home away from home, apartment 210H. I call this place home because from the moment I set foot in this apartment I felt comfortable, at ease and…excited. This feeling was foreign to me as I watched my family drive away and left me to my fate which was always before not too kind. This felt different. It was different. I was different.

The random roommates I was to be living with for the better part of a year, little known to me, would become some of my very best friends, my confidantes, and my family.

These three wonderful women welcomed me into their lives in a way that was more natural and comfortable than anything I’ve ever experienced before when meeting new people – or rather new friends. From the very start, there was an ease to our relationship which quickly grew and bloomed into a beautiful friendship. They took me out. They introduced me to their friends – who were just as quickly mine as well. They talked to me and listened to me. They helped me grow and get back to the Kaylin I’ve been missing for a very long time. They encouraged me and supported me when it mattered most.

But (and this is a big but)… the things I remember fondly and cherish the most are not the “big” moments of high drama that filled the apartment - and believe me there were quite a few, many of which were mine, oopsy 0:-).No, the things I remember are the more mundane everyday moments spanning over the nine months we lived together.

(Now here is my verbal movie montage of those moments.)

The day I saw GSB on the balcony and found out my roommates knew him. “Family” dinners. Seven Deadly Sins with Tyler and our Halloween party where Meghan came up and “whispered” to me that GSB had just walked through our door. When we made Christmas stockings. Snow days and prank wars. Many, many Penny Pitchers on Wednesday nights. The time Nicki couldn’t stop farting or the time we caught her looking at wedding dresses online. The time Meghan, in a mask, scared the crap out of Mo who had just gotten out of the shower and almost dropped her towel. Countless sex talks. All the mornings/afternoons we looked at pictures and swapped stories about the night before. The parade of men in our lives (well, Nicki and I’s lives ha-ha). The amount of times we said “my dick” or “something is something about…” Monday nights when we watched The Bachelor and complained about Brad and psycho Michelle. Our Royal Wedding breakfast party.

These are the moments that spring to mind at a second’s worth of thought. Yet, it’s the moments I could never begin to describe and give due credit to that means the most to me. It’s the moments that made us laugh till we cried, of coming home with a story knowing there was someone there to listen, bitch with or to tell me to get my head out of my ass – someone who just gets it. It’s the moments where no words were spoken, arms were open and held me as the tears fell fast and hard.

These, these are the moments that play like a film reel in my mind when someone mentions “roommates”, “my apartment”, “best friends”, “home” and “family”. 210H is one fabulous apartment but what made it so special were the three women who lived there with me because well…they were always there, especially when it mattered.

Otis Redding and Frank Sinatra, Passion Pit and Vampire Weekend, Lil Wayne and Burlesque – a motley crew of a soundtrack but nonetheless the perfect combination to capture the unique qualities of each woman of 210H. Random, hilarious, passionate, sexy, fun, crazy, wild, conservative, weird. Whatever adjective you would label it as when you walked through the door of 210H it will always be the first place outside my childhood home that I called home. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

<3 KMEN