90 Days Notice

90 Days Notice?! That seems like an awfully short amount of time to decide.  That’s the deadline that I have to give my management office a decision on my lease renewal.  And it’s coming up soon.  Sure it seems like a simple thing, but no!  As it goes for every simple thing in my life, I have turned it into the precipice for which my existence may forever be changed.  I have to decide if I like this area enough to stay another year.  Heck, do I like Texas enough to stay another year?  After all, only one person has visited me in 10 months.  And if I do stay in Houston, do I love my current job enough?  Do I stay???  Do I renew???  Oh goodness.  More than that, renewing this lease means staying a “renter” and being committed to my locale another year.  I don’t believe renting is bad, simply a matter of personal choice.  However, I told myself that after my first year of practicing, I would buy my first home.  Whether condo, townhouse or single-family style, I would start investing my money by way of owning property.  I spent my entire life in rentals.  We always dreamed of living in a big house, but renting was all that my mom could do for us as a single mother of four in NYC.  And our apartment is where all my creativity and knowledge was nurtured.  Renting has served its purpose in my family’s life.  By the time I went to college, Mommy was able to buy her first home in North Carolina. God has blessed all of my sisters to be able to purchase homes as well.

Now I love having an apartment.  I don’t have to shovel a driveway.  I have maintenance fix house my toilet.  I like having next door neighbors, clubhouses with Superbowl parties, and swimming pools with BBQ pits.  And no, you don’t get that apartment life in NYC.  Try moving south.  I am single so I believe having the social atmosphere of an apartment community is worth it.   But I know myself, if I move into a house this year I may turn into the cat-lady.  I am already on a slippery slope using cold weather (I live in TX) as a reason to stay at home and watch Being Mary Jane in my PJ’s with Chicky, drinking hot tea.  But then I’ll hear some laughter and loud talking outside and see my neighbors headed over to the clubhouse, which usually snaps me out of my complacent fog, and I comb my hair and head over to socialize.    Who would snap me out of my fog if I were alone in my own house?  See what I mean?  This might not be a problem in a small city where my sister or friends could easily drag me out, but in Northwest Houston, no one’s coming way up here to save me and I’m not motivated to go way down there to save myself.   Houston is ridiculously large, and everything is way spread out.   So that’s my dilemma.  My 90 days notice is in 20 days.  My entire world can change.  What should I do?