Searching for an apartment without a set move-out date is like writing without a deadline. It’s a process that can court possibilities to detrimental ends. With writing, I’m tempted to compulsively revise and restructure until the piece is led astray, its thesis lost to some meandering curiosity. In my housing hunt, the indeterminate timeline only served to fortify my naive belief that, with enough patience and effort, I’d find the perfect Manhattan apartment: a spacious studio on a quiet block downtown with lots of natural light. Ideally, it’d be rent-stabilized with French doors, exposed brick, or shared outdoor space—all within a tight budget of $2,200.

Ray, the first broker I met, told me that the rental season was swiftly coming to a close—the six-month “busy” period between April and September when landlords could charge exorbitant prices for shoebox-sized studios or, as he put it, when there’s more housing stock to choose from. Demand was already down by the time I’d begun touring in late September. Markdowns were common on StreetEasy. Still, the job of a broker is to impart a sense of urgency. “At this price and location, it’s going to go quick,” Ray said. We were touring a corner apartment in Chinatown. “This is the last one I’ll have for the foreseeable future.”

In almost every aspect of my life, I’m impulsive. I operate on instinct, on the animal that is feeling. I crave that instantaneous flash of realization that colors an ordinary encounter, the certainty that affirms a connection forged over a first date. The sentiment when you know, you know doesn’t necessarily translate to apartment listings—a place can’t offer the interpersonal reciprocity that kindles romance—but the best living spaces feel singular, even sacred. I was not only searching for an apartment; I wanted a place to make my own. A place I could commit myself to the “inward work” of writing, to quote the poet May Sarton, a respite from the city to “resume [being] myself” in uninterrupted solitude.

My first solo apartment felt like a chance encounter. A coworker had sent me the listing over Slack. I had been in New York for less than six months and immediately decided on the apartment without having seen it. The broker left the door to the unit unlocked for me to tour after I’d sent in the paperwork. I moved in a week later. It was a junior one-bedroom on the tenth floor of a rent-stabilized complex in Crown Heights. Before I could even buy a bed frame, the city shut down to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Years later, I still wonder why I gave it up to live in a Williamsburg basement with two other girls. Was I that lonely? Or was I simply afraid of my own solitude?

The Chinatown apartment was currently occupied by an acquaintance I knew from the internet.When Ray was out of earshot, he told me, “If I were you, I wouldn’t take it.” Had he not advised against it, I saw myself settling for the place. But his comment led me to reconsider my expectations: What kind of apartment was worth taking?

The next week, I saw a rent-stabilized fifth-floor walk-up that had a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, and French doors. Structurally, it was perfect, but I couldn’t bear living two blocks from Times Square. Then, there was the spacious Chinatown tenement with a tub in the kitchen—a historical quirk that, for $1,850 a month and no broker’s fee, seemed especially charming. But the building manager kept ghosting me after I toured, attributing the delays to management. The possibilities presented by those two apartments haunted me, and I developed a habit of scouring Craigslist immediately after a disappointing tour—a coping mechanism similar, I imagine, to swiping on the apps after a bad date. In New York, as Carrie Bradshaw once said, “You’re always either looking for a job, a boyfriend, or an apartment.” And I wanted to know that better was out there.

“Every apartment is a compromise,” a friend remarked.

“Well,” I said, lightly bristling at the comment. “I’m feeling lucky.”

I did get lucky, and as it happens, my luck ran out. This studio was in the Lower East Side and bore a striking resemblance to the Times Square walk-up, minus the washer and dryer. I was sold. Someone else beat me to it; they’d put in an application during my tour. Julia, the broker, said she’d have me on standby in case the applicant didn’t qualify and ushered me to another spot nearby that, without the French doors, felt too simple and small. I left with my hopes set on the first one.

I can be like a horse with blinders on—single-minded with a purpose, whether it’s with work or love. I’m either all in or out, a binary that is as rigid as it is alienating. Obstinacy can be invigorating, but it’s akin to turning the deadbolt on possibility. You become set on an ideal, without pausing to consider the unexpected potential of a less-than-perfect reality.

It felt like Christmas morning when I woke up to news that the first applicant failed to qualify. I rushed to submit my application only to learn, hours later, that the applicant had secured a guarantor and qualified. Julia offered me a deal on the second place we saw. Exasperated, I took it, grumbling like a child who didn’t like what Santa got her.

I moved in. It took two days for me to feel at home. The apartment faces a pale copper wall. The wall functions as a reflective filter for the sun, casting the studio in a pink-ish hue. It’s one of my favorite things about the space, as if the sun is breathing life into the silence, filling the room with its presence. Every morning, I think, this is what I was yearning for—a solitary space to encounter what Virginia Woolf described as the “moments of being,” a heightened awareness of life. 

Photographed by Christiaan van Heijst

Written by Terry Nguyễn