on Ontario Street

on a whim the other night I googled the old address and, because google is creepy and all-knowing, this street view photo came up

This is my old apartment.  The one I moved into in May 2000 as I was finishing my sophomore year of college and the one I moved out of the week after graduation in May 2002.  The one with the creaky stairs and slanted porch roof that held us as we drank illegal bud lights and pretended to be adults.  The one I lived in with Jenny and our friends spread out over two floors and two years.  Two summers, four semesters, it's amazing how much can be filled in just six rooms. 

I don't know Jenny anymore.  I get facebook updates from time to time but we haven't known each other since the fall after graduation.  She thought I wasn't being a good friend.  I thought she wasn't being a good friend.  The particulars have faded over the years.  And now when this song comes on the radio or the ipod shuffle I think of what we had there and because I don't know them anymore, I hurt just a little.  But more than that, I think of all that one place can mean, can hold, and I love it.