Left picture is June 12th 2025. Right is June 12th 2026. Technically my lease started on June 15th but my landlord was kind enough to let me store my things in there before my lease actually started. So much life has been lived in here that doesn't show in the pictures. Many very very late night conversations on that futon. Not much practice on that piano. More practice on the guitar. Lots of Family Guy over some lunch at the desk. So many restless nights struggling to sleep on that mattress. I have always felt that my tiny studio apartment feels like a prison. Many people have told me the same thing; "it's giving prison" might be the funniest thing someone's said about my apartment. A great many times I've had to conceal my expression and embarrassment as I walk people down the super dingy hallway to my apartment for a tour.

I do agree with the sentiment that it is a prison. For the first few months of living in Seattle, I really had a hard time trying to find my footing. I think if I didn't move in the summer time I would've hated Seattle. This image is what it felt like to live there. The summer was so beautiful and perfect that I didn't know what to do when I went outside so I just stayed inside. Had I moved during the dark months I would've been such a Seattle Hater. Now that I have such a wealth of friends It's been so exhausting hanging out all the time and for so long and often too. What a nice problem to have. I couldn't have imagined this a year ago.

Looking back on it all, I'm glad I managed to survive a year here. I've grown quite fond of it here. The first trip I took this year (2026) in May, I got really bad FOMO as soon as I stepped on the plane. I was going back to visit friends in Alabama for their graduation and I got really worried about not being present for the life I built in Seattle. I would've thought that I'd be working at some engineering company after a year but I've also struggled with that. I was unemployed for the full first year I was here. The first day of my second year I started a job at a moving company called Adam's Moving. And now exactly a month after starting I write this. It is July 12th 2026 now.

This may be my prison, my rock bottom. But one thing's for sure, it is no one else's prison, and no one else's rock bottom. I can't wait to see where I'll be after two years in Seattle.