The Murder Building: Part II

So came the day when I moved in. Because the stairwell only has a one way door that doesn’t let you back up, we had to claim one of the elevators as our own to move all my junk to the seventh floor. With the help of my mother and one of my friends, we hauled boxes in trips, stuffed the elevator, carried them to my suite, and went back down to do it all over. I can’t quite remember how long it took. It wasn’t terrible once we got the hang of things but it was still time consuming. Especially given the fact that we had been up since the early morning to get to the island which consists of taking two ferries and driving across Vancouver. By the time my absurd amount of belongings were all accounted for in my new home, we were bushed. 
Eventually my mother helped me set up my futon-bunk bed situation so we would actually have a place to sleep. The next day she had a friend that lived somewhat nearby, and his date-mate help set up my IKEA-cubby thing so with that, my bed, and a desk I also had, that was all my furniture. After a small adventure to Value Village, I now had a nice chair. It was the only official sitting item that I owned. 
My mother had stayed over the weekend, but after that, I was left to my own devices. I had to wait for my internet modem to come in which was supposed to take a couple days, which really gave me nothing else to do but unpack. She had helped me, before she left, to find a reasonably priced, obscure internet provider that would send a human over to plug in the modem. During the few days I was waiting for that, my house-room was coming together to an extent. I had all my furniture where I wanted it, my clothes were organized into my cubbies and the closet, and my hoard of mugs now dwelled in the kitchen rather than a box I had in my old garage-man-cave. We had brought over a succulent plant from home and my mum’s friend gifted me a pothos plant, so the two of those brought some homey feels. 
The day finally came for me to have an internet connection. A fellow came by and had to sit awkwardly under my desk which happened to be right in front of the plug in. He tinkered for a bit before telling me some unexpected news. The wire that went from my suite, up in the wall, to the satellite dish on the roof of the building, was broken. It had either been cut or caught somewhere within the wall and he couldn’t reach it to connect the modem. In other words, I had spent eighty-seven dollars for nothing. It also turned out that Shaw was the provider for the building so I, who used Telus, couldn’t get any sort of assistance given that they didn’t support the building in any way. To say the least, I was fecked. I already had to pay for extra data on my phone twice as I was using it as a hotspot for my laptop and ipad. I figured that I was damned to having to use a nearby Starbucks as my sole source of internet. I had spent the week figuring out what the hell to do for that, setting up my house, and rewatching the entirety of Game of Thrones for the third time on my DVD boxed set. It should not have only taken a week to get through that, but it did. I have a wee DVD player for my laptop and just sat on my bed in utter defeat watching my favorite characters die..again. I felt so constricted without the ability to connect to the rest of the world properly and I was incredibly pleased to find that Telus offered this little data hub. It worked as a source of internet connection for those that lived in rural places. It was a blessing from the universe and the feeling of suffocating isolation lifted. The first hurdle I faced, now defeated.
The second hurdle I faced was when it was decided that our bathrooms would be made over, which is all well and good to an extent. What perturbed me was that I had just finished unpacking and sorting my belongings out, bathroom included and now I had to take everything out. The construction lads would come in around eight-thirty in the morning and work until about four every day. As someone who sleeps in till about ten-thirty, this really sucked. I was also not allowed to use the shower the entirety of them fixing up the bathroom. The office ladies, however, gave keys to unused suites for us tenants, which I will say, comes in handy when most of the building is empty. So for a week, I would go up to the nineteenth floor and shower. We were allowed to leave our toiletries up there since each person had their own suite, which was nice. The whole thing though became so inconvenient. 
I was also in the market for a job at the time and I had to wake up much earlier in the morning just to get ready and dressed before a horde of men entered my room-house. I’m also intensely awkward and shy so having to move around them everytime I left gave me a sense of dread. I couldn’t go about my day normally and I was so relieved when they said they were done. Of course, before one of them left, he told me that the whole floor had asbestos beneath it and that if ever the tiles became cracked, exposure could be deadly. He also said that if they had to redo the flooring, I’d have to completely move out to avoid breathing the stuff in. That was a fun thing I panicked about for a few days, thinking that they would renovate this place soon or that I would just slowly get poisoned to death from my floor. Despite whichever happened though, the second hurdle was also defeated. 
I moved on July fourth. I was still in need of doing a second trip back to my mum’s to gather the rest of my belongings, kitchen things, and the TV. She was moving at the end of August so this would be the last hoorah of getting rid of anything she didn’t want and bringing it to me. Thus, I was living without any tables, TV, couch, and extra kitchen stuff like pots and pans. We had picked up a blender, microwave, and toaster though so I was fine for the time being. I also found a small pot left behind deep in a cabinet. It was a good day though when I finally got the TV. A few more days were spent reorganizing and then I invited company over. Not having anything to sit on besides my bed which failed to morph into a futon for some reason, and a chair, hosting more people than just me was kind of a hassle. So we went on a hunt. 
I can’t remember when the street couch was found. But it was wonderful. After an epic saga of getting it into the building, through the elevator, down the hall, and into my house, we had a place to sit. The couch really was a whole situation as we could only fit something thirty inches wide because nothing else would fit through my door frame. A couple weeks later my friends surprised me with a lovely,wooden coffee table, also from the side of the road. With these two key pieces of furniture inhabiting my living space, the house was complete. It went from a cold, white-cream colored square to a cozy, cabin inspired den. It was our new downtown hub and I was significantly more excited about living in my murder building. It felt so much more like a home and despite where it was, it was many steps up from my garage-man-cave. 
I have moved some furniture around since and it’s much more open now. Honestly, it felt so refreshing to just move around a couch and coffee table to face a different direction. It was so simple yet made such an impact. As it stands a year later, it feels whole, comfortable, and somewhere I can be for a long time. This journey started off with many doubts, bumps, and frustrations, but it has come to a neat and satisfying conclusion. I am as happy as I can be here and wouldn’t trade it for anything but my future land and cabin, which is saying something.