Member-only story

my basement apartment

Lady Tall Hair
5 min readApr 7, 2020

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Photo by Aw Creative on Unsplash

My new apartment is in a basement, nestled within a renovated Victorian mansion. Throughout the last century, the mansion has been sliced and diced into 7 one-bedroom units. The units have the basic features of an apartment, but they are not real apartments. My own apartment lacks a real heating system; it’s filled with space heaters, disguised as baseboard heaters. These space heaters will eventually blow out the fuse during the polar vortex.

But I knew I loved the apartment as soon as I turned the corner onto the street. My apartment is on a very narrow street. It’s also very short. St James Street is one block, from Clark Ave to the North Pond Park. It reminds me of a quiet street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The street is lined with gorgeous, old mansions. There are high-rise apartment buildings at the end of the street, where it runs into the park, with breathtaking views of North Pond resting in front of the Chicago skyline. Walking down this street and around this park brings a sense of peace to me. A sense that anything is possible.

My mom and stepdad have come to town to help me move in. I’m surprised my mom has made this gesture. When six weeks earlier, I told her I was in fear living with Jake, my ex, until I could move into my apartment, explaining his irrational, sometimes violent behavior, she was ambivalent. One night, he threatened to end his life for…

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Lady Tall Hair
Lady Tall Hair

Written by Lady Tall Hair

Writer with moxie & anxiety. Unfiltered first-person narratives about dating, sex, and the dark parts of the human experience that connect us all.

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