I'm going to take you back to a time when I lived alone in a studio that was located on Fanuel Street in Pacific Beach. I was in my mid-twenties and wanted some independence and alone time to clear my head when I'd get home from work so I found the most affordable place I could find and signed a lease. This studio happened to be located behind a 7-11 where a lot of homeless people would gather around. Now, as a naive young professional, it didn't cross my mind that I would be affected by the foot traffic coming from this particular 7-11. I was only a block from Typhoon Saloon (which is a bar that is now closed) so I thought I'd probably hear people being rowdy as they're walking to and from the bars.I guess my studio door looked like an office door of some sort because in the middle of the night, I had gotten a few random knocks! I'd never opened the door when I'd get those knocks. I just pretended that no one was home and kept quiet. I signed a lease for 6 months for that place but I was out of there in 5 months. I couldn't handle being scared anymore and was fearful of what a weekend night in PB could bring to my doorstep. I even had a homeless person slept in front of my door on the night of Christmas Eve! I was so scared. I wanted to call the police but I also didn't want to ruin someone else's Christmas Eve and get them in jail. This homeless man's mumbling in his sleep was so loud, I could hear it through my door and that kept me up! He wasn't one of the knockers thought. He just simply slept in front of my doorstep because I had bushes there and it kind of shielded him from passer-byers so I guess he thought it was a perfect spot to pass out. He left early in the morning but I found his 7-11 cup that he had left on the ground as I was opening my front door. I was so glad he was gone. I think he was a homeless man. Til this day, I don't know for sure. He could've just been a lost depressed man on Christmas Eve who didn't want to go home. Who knows?!Anyway, this was also a time was I was kind of in a weird cloud mentally. Our economy was in a recession and my workplace had put all of us on a furlough schedule. Every other Friday, I had a day off from work so that my workplace could save money on labor without having to lay off too many people. I was depressed that I couldn't progress in my career and not only that, I got diagnosed with an ulcer in my stomach from all the work stress. I generally love Pacific Beach and where I lived at that time was so convenient but I didn't love how much foot traffic the location of my studio got. People were always rowdy after coming out of bars and there were nights when I needed a decent sleep and the noise was just too much. In retrospect, I did enjoy being able to walk a couple of blocks to get to the grocery store from this studio. I was also a regular 24 hour fitness goer so it was nice to be able to walk a few blocks to the gym and be close to all the action and beach. However, the random knocks were getting too stressful for me and I didn't get the peace that I was hoping for when I especially needed them after a tough work day. The next place I moved to after that studio was a 3 bedroom apartment on Pacific Beach Drive and to help me feel safer, I moved in with two other roommates. I didn't realize it at the time, but they were the most sane roommates I ended up ever having. I'll tell you a funny story about this Pacific Beach Drive apartment in my next blog post.
