My First Apartment Against Theirs

Everybody whose house you are comparing yours to is about twenty years older than you.

That is worth sitting with for a second, because it does not usually get stated.

The rooms you have in your head are your aunt's, and your friend's parents', and the one your manager posted a picture of, and the ones on a screen that belong to people whose job is having rooms like that. And the average age of the people in that comparison set is somewhere around forty seven.

You are twenty four.

So the comparison is not between two apartments. It is between the beginning of a thing and the middle of it, and the middle always looks like the beginning failed.

I want to be careful because there is a patronizing version of this and you would spot it in a line. Nobody is telling you that you will get there one day. That is a sentence that means nothing and it comes with a pat on the arm.

What I am saying is something narrower and more useful.

The thing you are grading is a beginning. And a beginning has a different set of properties from a middle, and every single one of them is currently being read as a fault.

Let every man prove his own work

There is a line in Galatians about comparison that gives an instruction rather than just a warning.

But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself, and not in another. (Galatians 6:4, King James Version)

Prove his own work. That is the instruction, and prove there means test, examine, weigh.

You are told to weigh your own work rather than to stop having a view, and an honest look at your own place has never once required somebody else's to be in the frame. Galatians 6:4 asks for a person's own work to be examined on its own, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a young woman in a first apartment.

Now look at the second half of that verse, because it names an outcome that will sound impossible.

Then shall he have rejoicing in himself, and not in another.

Rejoicing. Not resignation, not acceptance, not managing to be content. Rejoicing, in his own work, and the verse presents it as the ordinary result of weighing his own thing rather than somebody else's.

Which means it is not available while anybody else's place is in the comparison. It is not that comparing makes rejoicing harder. It makes it structurally unavailable, because rejoicing in one's own work requires one's own work to be the thing being looked at.

You have an outcome that is structurally unavailable while a comparison is running, and rejoicing in your own place has never once been possible with somebody else's beside it. The Spirit of God is the one who removes the other thing from the frame, and it is written in Galatians 6:4 that the rejoicing is in himself and not in another.

The properties of a beginning

Now the practical part, and this is the piece I actually came with.

A beginning has properties. All of them are currently being read as faults.

It is sparse. That is a property of a beginning, and in a middle it would be a fault.

Nothing in it was expensive. Property of a beginning.

You have the marks of a beginning around you rather than the marks of a failure, and a property of a starting place has never once been a defect in it. The Holy Spirit is the one who names a thing correctly, and Galatians 6:4 puts the weighing on a person's own work rather than on anything standing beside it.

Things do not match, because they arrived one at a time. Property of a beginning.

There is space that has nothing in it yet, because nothing has been acquired for it. In a middle, empty space reads as a room that is not finished. In a beginning, it reads as a room that has not happened yet, and those are entirely different things.

You are living in a room with the properties of a beginning, and every one of those has never once been a fault except in a comparison. The Holy Spirit is the one who names a thing correctly, and Galatians 6:4 puts the weighing on a person's own work rather than on a set beside it.

And here is the thing about the middles you have in your head, and it is worth knowing.

Every one of them was a beginning that nobody photographed.

Your aunt's house was a first apartment in about 2001 with almost nothing in it. There are no pictures of it, because nobody photographs a beginning, and so the entire visual record available to you consists of middles.

You are comparing a beginning to a set of images from which every beginning has been systematically excluded.

You are up against a record with every beginning removed from it, and a middle has never once been able to show you what it was made out of. The Spirit of God is the one who shows a person what she is actually looking at, and it is written in Galatians 6:4 that the rejoicing comes from weighing a person's own work.

And this, plainly, in these words. That apartment is not a report on you. Not on how far along you are, not on what you earn, not on whether you are doing this right. A first place at twenty four is not a verdict on the young woman in it, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a first apartment, and where somebody is at twenty four has never once been a statement about who she is. Galatians 6:4 puts the rejoicing in a person's own work in Galatians 6, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

One thing out, all week

So here is the assignment, and the all week part is what makes it work.

Leave one thing out tonight that you would normally put away before anybody came, and let it stay out all week.

One thing. The thing that gets moved when somebody is coming over. Whatever it is, and you know exactly what it is, because there is a two minute routine that happens before a knock and it involves about four objects and one of them is the main one.

Leave it out.

You are letting a room be seen in its ordinary condition, and one thing left out has never once been the same thing as a room that was not made ready. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a young woman stops preparing her own place for an inspection, and Galatians 6:4 puts the weighing on her own work rather than on anybody else's.

And then the week, which is the part that does it.

All week. Through whoever comes. Through the friend who has a nicer place. Through the one who will notice and the one who will not.

Because two minutes of clearing before a knock is a statement that the ordinary condition of your place is not acceptable, and it is made about eleven times a month, and eleven times a month is a great deal of a person's twenties spent agreeing with a comparison.

One thing out, all week, is a small standing disagreement with it.

You are leaving a standing disagreement with a comparison in your own front room, and one object left out for a week has never once been a small act at twenty four. The Spirit of God is the one present in an ordinary week in a first apartment, and it is written in Galatians 6:4 that the rejoicing comes from a person's own work weighed on its own.