Portuguese version is here :)
This place seems to be too calm, but it's not :)
It is active in my head, and in a month of projects and moving house, things need to settle down again. Meanwhile, life goes on and that's how the story I'm publishing today was born - written almost a month ago.
Enjoy! 🌻
Today I woke up at 10:12 a.m., and for someone who doesn't usually go past 8 a.m., this was quite atypical, but yesterday was not an ordinary day either.
I don't even know what message I want to send with this text. Maybe something like life is a box of chocolates, a la Forrest Gump. Maybe something like time is the best solution - I don't know which cliché I will throw myself into at the end of this story. We shall see.
On December 1st we came to live in a shared apartment in Copenhagen, Denmark. My expectations were high, since the place is well located, the apartment is big and modern, there is a company that takes care of all the maintenance, bills, cleaning, and the main thing: the contact with people from different places.
Obviously, I was afraid to share kitchen, living room and bathroom again, but we heard some sensational reports from people close to me who made friends for life living in spaces of this company.
I always joke that I don't like people, but in the right configuration, people bring me a lot of energy. That petit comitè with good food and good stories is the height of my happiness. So are roads, but that's for another text.
When I arrived here, I had several shocks due to the change of country. I didn't know how to buy groceries, I didn't know how to use the new kitchen, and much less how to navigate in a shared house. I was super ashamed when I put powder soap in the liquid soap compartment of the washing machine, and it got stuck. And nobody knows that I first tried to wash clothes in the dryer, but never mind.
The people in the house, whom I had high expectations of, were quiet.
Everyone inside their rooms, or working a lot, or traveling a lot, or simply showing up little in the common spaces. My expectations of having a good time with the people of the house withered away.
There were 5 different nationalities, with different habits and schedules that did not match. More than the schedules, the profiles didn't connect.
And when there is no connection, what is left is dirty dishes in the sink.
And the dishes misplaced in the dishwasher. And the dirty knife which had to be cleaned by the person after. The "dirt" piles up on relationships.
The person I was closest to moved out a month after we arrived. The other two were very absent, and the last one was a mess in person. And to top it all off, she started organizing parties for her friends at our house.
"Hey guys! On Friday, some friends are coming over from 8-11pm, and then we're going out, is that okay?"
Obviously, it was okay. We have the freedom to call guests in the house, as long as other people's spaces are respected, right?
Right?
But the parties became more and more wild. They didn't end at the agreed time. They didn't end before midnight. There was loud music, loud laughter, and when they left, the house was a horror movie.
Knowing what was going on, the people in the house started going out on these days. Me included. Once I arrived at 1am and the house looked like it had been robbed. Lights on, TV on, things scattered on the floor, spilled drinks, makeup on the table, drinks and snacks leftovers, and to crown it all: an indecent message on the bulletin board, including a realistically drawn genitalia.
No one wants to take on the role of the house complainer, but that day I had no qualms:
"Hey, when you come back, please clean the living room." - And I couldn't care less if the return was at 4 a.m. - no one was obliged to wake up and have coffee in that environment.
It becomes heavy to live like this. You never know if you're going to find something you want to use out of place or dirty. You try to send kind messages in the house group, but there is no return.
"It's only temporary, soon we'll go to our place, just you and I.” - my husband told me. He was right, so I kept waiting and being more tolerant than I would like. Soon this would be over.
But in the last day of March, a message appeared on the house's application:
The person was leaving. It was very unexpected.
(Did I celebrate? YES!)
That month was intense. Every week it was the "last goodbye party". At the last official party, everyone asked for it to end early. When I got home, there were God knows how many people leaving. There was noise on the stairs, the smell of cigarettes (which is forbidden) and the mess in the living room was just like it was a dance club.
On this day I confess that before leaving home I hid all the pens from the whiteboard in the living room.
Two weeks after her departure we received a communication from the company saying that the building received a formal complaint about our apartment regarding noise, partying and smoking.
But now the problem was gone.
I was just happy that no one else would put the garlic smasher - filled with garlic - in the dishwasher, and then Carlotta arrived.
Carlotta came to occupy the room of the person who had left. Four years older than the "party girl" and, amazingly, working in the same business. I was afraid. We get traumatized, don't we?
But this Italian girl arrived looking for the vacuum cleaner to clean her room - which had been cleaned before her arrival. I breathed a little relieved. Talkative. Excited. Curious. Friendly.
And the house did not gain a new resident. The climate and relationships have changed completely.
You know that old story about having someone toxic at work and the solution is to remove the person from the team? Never doubt it.
I started to notice, with an atypical frequency, 3 or 4 people together talking in the room. Even those who work or travel too much. I myself have spent hours talking to Carlotta. People laugh more.
Carlotta's room has a built-in staircase to an attic. Since her arrival, everyone has made a foray into the secret compartment. She asked me for help to redo her blonde hair highlights. I told her I had never done this before, but we agreed to try.
When a new member arrives in the house, the company offers a fee for a welcome dinner. When we arrived, we didn't know how to proceed, so we didn't say anything. When the Dutch girl arrived, two months after us, she made a nice effort to have her welcome dinner. We ordered pizza, but two people could not attend.
But Carlotta said she would make an Italian dinner for us. And after many schedules coming and going, that dinner will be today - the day I woke up 10:12 in the morning.
Perhaps your expectation is to read about the dinner, but I am not clairvoyant enough to know what it will be like. What I do know is that yesterday was one of the most fun days in this house.
In the morning, I went to the gym while Carlotta went to buy croissants. On the way back, we had coffee together and started to do her locks. Her room is in the living room, so everybody who woke up went there to talk to us and see how things were going. Even the Dutch girl's sincere and funny boyfriend, who is spending a few days with us.
The Dane, who works a lot, had a date, and we wished him good luck when he left all dressed up. Since we finished her hair in the middle of the afternoon, I made a late lunch for the two of us and my husband, who was engaged in painting Warhammer miniatures.
I was pretty tired from hours of standing at the hair session, so I decided to relax watching TV until evening, but at the end of our lunch, the Dutch couple started cooking, and suddenly the Dane arrived with his date, to everyone's surprise. I had never seen him so talkative and excited. The two of them had already drunk a few glasses of wine, and things started to get really funny.
While the Dutch girl finished her lunch and Carlotta finished her hair, the Dutch boyfriend and I were summoned to play Cards Against the Humanity with the alcoholic Dane and his date, a person I had never seen before and already considered a lot.
Despite the daylight, it was almost 9 pm and the date had to end the meeting because she was going to meet some friends. In the hallway, while everyone was saying goodbye, we found out that the Dane, still drunk, had to go to the office at that time - 9pm of a Saturday night.
Do you know when you stop at your neighbor's door to chat? We stayed like this, the 6 of us, for a long time at the door of the Dutch woman's room, asking why the Dane had to go to the office on Saturday, why these people can drink so much and insisting that the date should come back the next day for our Italian dinner.
When they both left and the day seemed to be over, I popped some popcorn and watched RuPaul with Carlotta in the living room, which gave us time to see the possible future couple returning home - raising expectations that she would accompany us for breakfast.
When I went to bed, around midnight, my body was completely destroyed, but my spirit was floating as light as a feather.
I remembered that at the end of June, the following month, we will leave the co-living and move into an apartment just me and hubby. I found out yesterday that the Dane guy is also moving out in July.
I felt a little sad in my heart, because I know how valuable and unique these moments are.
When I remember the beginning of life in the co-living, it seems like ages ago. It's amazing how building good memories can make frustrations so small.
And now, let the Italian dinner come tonight!
PS: after one month of that day, it is fair to bring you pictures of the dinner, right? 😉
Remember: english is not my native language! This is a translated version of Liliando in portuguese. If you see any major mistake, please be kind and just let me know!