- joshuabaldwin3
The Decatur House
At the beginning of the COVID shelter in place, I had to find a new place to live. Hannah and I both searched trying to find a place within a week. I was completely lost, till one day Hannah said that she's found a place that looks promising.
I headed down to Decatur one night and I'm met by Mary. Here I was, broken on her doorstep, and she met me with so much kindness. I told her what I was able to pay and she worked with me. I knew instantly that this was the right choice. Within a week, I pack all my belongings and embark on a new adventure.
The Decatur house is a haven tucked away in the Emory district. At the time of my arrival there were five of us living there. My very first night, I was treated to a family style dinner, where we all pitched in to prep and cook the food. No one liked to chop the onions so I volunteered, which automatically made me the permanent onion chopper. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was finally at home. Over the summer I grew to love the people in that house as an extension of my found family.
The other great thing about that house, it was within walking distance of Lullwater which is a beautiful hiking ground on Emory campus. almost every day, I would walk outside, while listening to The Beatles or some video game music, and get lost in the trails. And when I say lost, I mean LOST. When I go hiking, and I have the choice between a well worn trail and a path that a deer might have gone down recently, I'm going to take the deer trail 100% of the time. I found some pretty neat spots that way, like this old cistern system that had been out of use for a while. It made the perfect spot to escape and read, even though I kept looking over my shoulder every so often to make sure nothing came out of the holes there.
When I look back, I think about how fortunate I was to land on such a gem. I attribute that fortune to be God, fate, or whatever you call the higher power that guides life. That being said, I realize, sometimes it takes a rough situation to bring about something joyous. Without having to move so abruptly, I would have never found this haven and these wonderful people. If you are going through a time of hardship, I encourage you to work to find that haven and eventually, you'll find the good in a bad situation.
