Smaller.

Above are a couple of photos of my apartment. And yes, what you see is most of my apartment. To the right out of the frame are a small kitchen and a small bathroom. There's also an entry hallway with enough room for a couch and a good size closet.

I'll have to dig up some of my photos of my houses in Kansas. The last I owned with my ex had five bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, full living and dining rooms, a full basement, a two car garage, and was on a corner lot in the nicest old neighborhood in Topeka. The amount for which we sold that house would barely be a downpayment on a one bedroom apartment in Manhattan, and I'm talking before paying off the mortgage!

I'm unlikely to be a homeowner again in NYC. I look forward with wonder to answering the question of whether I'll ever want to move away from NYC, because I cannot now imagine the circumstances that could prompt such a move, at least voluntarily. Thus I may from now on always be able to fit my worldly possessions into a small van. And frankly, that's okay with me. Lean and mean, I can be three blocks or three thousand miles away without too much inconvenience.

I fight change. I worry and fret over how it may negatively impact my life. And yet it happens, over and over again, whether I worry or not.

Last weekend I painted my apartment. Not all of it, just some select areas. The darker caramel brown and the lilac gray/blue are both new. For once I'm really happy with my color selections.

If I must live with change, I suppose making some of those changes myself, rather than waiting for what the world throws at me, is probably a good idea.