The coming weeks will most likely be the biggest turning points in my life. I am moving out (potentially) for the second time in my life, this time with Bree. Just to reminisce, when I first moved out to College Station, the stakes were a lot lower. Rent was $500 a month (what a steal in retrospect) -- and sure, it was about an hour and a half drive away from my family, but I could always depend on them to cover me if I didn't have the funds to. It was kind of like going to college, but without the college. Now, I'm doing it for real. I am signing a lease and living completely independent from my family. I have a job, I have way more responsibility, way more bills to pay -- this is the real deal.
The most nerve-racking part of doing all this is actually doing it. For what feels like years now, Bree and I have been basically planning our whole life together: sending each other TikToks on apartment tips, furniture recommendations, apartment listings in the Houston area; we were dreaming, looking back on it, a little beyond our means. But now, those dreams are within reach, with my recent raise, and with the opportunities to move out being opened up by Essential Housing programs pushed by a couple of leasing agencies in the area.

Edvard Munch -- Omega's Flight (Omegas flukt), 1908-09
I had some maybe naive confidence in myself before we had started the process of deciding to move out -- I had done it before, why would I be scared to do it again? But when it came time to actually do it, I found myself more nervous than ever.
It all started when one day, as I was driving home from work, I thought, Huh. Even though 'V' can no longer move in with us, what's really stopping us? After running through all the potential numbers in my head, I landed half-footedly on the answer: nothing, really. And so, I immediately got on my computer the moment I got home and looked up this apartment locator service I had tried to use maybe a year ago, but chickened out because I wasn't ready yet. I filled out their form -- asking for my desired rent, location, etc. -- to create a card for myself, and was almost instantly reached out to by my apartment locator, 'J'. I think she's around our age, which was comforting, because this whole thing definitely would have been way more stressful and nerve-racking if she wasn't personable. She asked for more clarification on my price range, and I said around the $900-$1100 mark. In like 30 minutes she went through her database and picked out actual capital L 'Luxury' apartments that somehow didn't show up on the Apartments.com or Zillow listings that Bree and I browsed when we were shopping with 'V'.
We set up a tour with a couple of the apartments, and at first, I was starting to doubt the validity of apartment locators because the service there was legitimately awful. We showed up on time (which Bree and I rarely do) and waited for like 25 minutes before our tour guide arrived at the front desk. During that waiting period, we checked their Google reviews and Good Lord were they bad. Every review within the past 3 months had 1 star ratings, with tenants complaining about how awful the management was recently after it changed, that their vehicles were routinely getting broken into, and that in particular our tour guide/manager was kind of an asshole. For 'luxury' apartment standards, it was not very well-kempt -- so after the tour concluded, we decided against continuing to the application process.
After maybe about two rounds of getting e-mailed apartment listings and scheduling tours, we landed on two different units from two different leasing companies that were pretty much perfect for us -- well within our price range and with ratings & reviews with at least a 50% rating in the past 3 months.

František Kupka -- The Book Lover
After a very arduous application process -- me "losing" around $190 because I applied to two apartments at once, because when applying to the apartment Bree and I both agreed on, the unit disappeared from the application -- and so losing my mind and panicking, deciding to apply to the second option because I didn't want it to slip through my fingers -- then finding out later on that unit hadn't actually disappeared and was being held for us, but only on the application that was sent to us via e-mail -- we are now waiting on the approval from the first option before we decide on picking either one. The second option kind of seems desperate for us to move in, since I've gotten a total of 15 and counting e-mails from them, but the first option is cheaper and, from the looks of it, safer in terms of vehicle protection. Plus, renter's insurance is included in the residential fees.
All in all, I'm both nervous and excited. I get to live in a space that's truly mine (and Bree's, though she's not moving in for another couple of months) now. Here goes.