Familiarizing the Footsteps

I’ve been in my new apartment for just under one week now, and, although I love it, there are always certain adjustments that have to be made when becoming accustomed to a new home. New noises, in particular, can feel quite cacophonous until you adapt to them. I remember this one time when my mom was in town staying with me at my old place, for instance...

As I was trying to drift off to sleep, she asked, “What’s that sound!?”

“What sound?” I asked, puzzled and groggy.

“That sound!” she responded. I had to work hard to hear what she was hearing and it took me a minute to realize it was the refrigerator making the same sounds it always made, on about a 15-minute cycle.

She didn’t even believe me when I explained that it was only the fridge, certain that it had to be something more serious than that. It took me a little while to assure her that it was, in fact, a normal sound from my kitchen.

So anyway, the building I’ve moved into was built in the fifties (I presume), and the floors aren’t as thick as those in my last apartment. You can definitely hear the person above you walking around. You can even hear yourself as you move through your apartment. The first night I stayed in the new place, it became painfully apparent that I was living beneath a lumberer. A lumberer who’s up at odd hours of the night. Each of his(her?)heavy step vibrates my body, heavy with sleep, as I attempt to pass out each night (a small vibration, really, exacerbated by my strong desire to go to sleep and my annoyance that some people don’t know how to carry their weight). I’m sure I will get used to the lumbering steps (after all, there was a time when I could block out even CTA trains right outside the window at night), but I’m still in the adjustment period.

So, as I write this, I can barely even keep my eyes open. It’s been night after night of dwindling hours of sleep. At least the heavy-footed dweller above me has made me overtly conscious of my own footsteps through my apartment, but I honestly didn’t need to be reminded of this annoyance to tread lightly. I can’t help but feel that the person living below me is lucky to be living under a former dancer. Oh, well. Another week or so, and the heavy steps will be as commonplace to me as the sounds of my fridge in the old apartment.