Taking Life with Chances

I find myself daydreaming about my first apartment… off Molino Dr in Long Beach.

It was small. Like… 450 sq ft small.
They called it a “junior one bedroom,” which really just meant there was a separate bedroom… just without a door.

It sat above a law office. There were a couple other units that shared a deck.

I didn’t plan to live there.

At the time, I was living with a roommate in my hometown. We had done a couple places together, and I just kind of assumed we’d keep doing that until one of us moved on to something more “adult.”

But she became a flight attendant… and that changed things.

Somehow, through a random reconnect with a childhood friend, I ended up in Long Beach, standing in a law office, signing a lease.

$700 a month.

I packed up what fit in my FJ and just… went.

It was an adjustment at first.
Long Beach is not Thousand Oaks.

My place was right on the corner of Molino and 7th.
Bars. Traffic. Noise at all hours.

I loved all of it.

I walked everywhere. Mostly because parking was a nightmare, but also because I wanted to.

To the right—there was this neighborhood bar. At the time it was called The Bull Bar.

Every Tuesday, like clockwork, I’d go in for a burger, a club soda (served in a cocktail glass, always), and watch Hoarders.

Same spot. Same routine.

To the left was The Prospector.
Old-school, a little rough around the edges. The kind of place where the waitresses sounded like they smoked a pack a day.

Best biscuits. Heavy drinks. Live music at night.

It was all very… local. In the best way.

And that apartment—

That tiny space somehow held everything.

Family dinners.
Too many people crammed onto that deck that definitely shouldn’t have held us all.
Folding tables.
Beer pong. Stories. Laughing way too loud.

It felt like something.

Like… this is what home is supposed to feel like.

Not perfect. Not quiet. Not put together.

Just full.

And I think about that place a lot now.

Because whatever that feeling was—

that’s the one I keep trying to find again.