Last week I was reminded via Facebook Memories that seven years ago I moved into my first apartment. It was nothing fancy, but it was love at first sight: French Doors, a claw foot bathtub, and hardwood floors. I loved this small 550sq.ft space more than anything. Sure, the floors were squeaky, the neighbours upstairs were noisy, and the water pressure was weak, but it was mine, a place to call my own. It was in this apartment that I adopted my cat, Kingsley; I wanted a companion but not the human kind, and a dog was just too much. It was in this small space that I learned what it feels like to have mere cents in the bank account and no food in the fridge. This was the spot that girlfriends would come over to chat late into the night. And most importantly, this was the place that I finally grew comfortable being on my own.

I remember locking myself out of my apartment one evening in the winter. I didn’t realize until after a few drinks as I searched for my keys inside my purse. As most amazing ideas are the brainchild of booze, my idea of climbing the garbage cans to my bathroom window that was ajar, was a given. After failing, and falling, I had to call my landlord.

I have hazy memories of hanging out with a girlfriend who lived a few blocks away. My back-stoop became the spot we would smoke Sobranie’s, sip rosé or some homemade cocktail and discuss our current life choices; Lana Del Rey’s drowsy voice and the murmur of busy St. Paul Street the soundtrack to those summer nights.

I became comfortably at peace with the place I called home, but after two and a half years of safe refuge, my fear became a reality, as my beloved apartment turned against me. It was an early summer morning, but the city was still asleep when I was jerked awake by what sounded like my door knob turning. Too scared to move, I stayed in bed and reassured myself that it was just a dream. A few seconds later, I heard a deep bellowing voice say, “B!tch, let me in.” I screamed, and jolted out of bed – it sounded like an someone was inside my apartment. With nothing to protect myself, exposed and terrified, I slowly walked towards my kitchen, where I stood face-to-face with an unrecognizable man, my only protection, the window screen that stood on guard between me and this intruder. I yelled at him to leave, colourful curse words escaped my mouth, and with shaky limbs, I slammed the kitchen window closed and locked it. The man did not recognize that his behaviour was unwanted but continued to pound on my door and the walls of the building, spewing profane language, and causing me to feel weak, dirty and isolated. Finally, the man gave up and ran off somewhere, while I remained hidden on my living room floor crying.

After I gained a bit of strength, I called the police, and to my horror, they did nothing but made me feel as if the incident was my fault.

That moment changed my carefree spirit and I became paranoid of what could be lurking around a corner, or across the street. I became a 27-year-old woman who triple checked that the door was locked, and that the windows closed. I could no longer sleep in the dark and had to leave my night table lamp on – shadows that were once familiar scared me and sounds that were soothing became unbearable.

I remained in that apartment for ten more months. When the day came to leave, I was sad; I didn’t want to say goodbye to my first home, to the memories I created in that small space, and to the place that taught me to stand on my own. Although it felt like she abandoned me that one summer morning, in reality, my old apartment protected me.

As I was driving into work the other day, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror to make sure that toothpaste residue wasn’t caked around my lips, and noticed, instead, a faint sign of a wrinkle just above my upper lip. The horror: a new line, a new crease, a new sign of the impending inevitable aging process. I’m not young and I’m not old per se (what constitutes old and young anyways?), nor am I a wrinkle rookie as lines slowly decorate my flesh. Yet, it’s still upsets me when I find a crevice that was not there the day before, and I quietly curse the anti-aging potion I spent a fortune on for not doing its magic.

The same day, an editorial piece popped up in my news feed about the benefits and beauty of injectables, and I felt defeated for being victim of another clickbait article brandishing the vulnerable. But I had to know, what is the aging cure, so I read and found that the answer is in the form of repeated cosmetic treatments. Okay, but there has to be something else? Can’t I just slather Fun Dip on my face, relive the 90s, drink lots of water and go to bed at a respectable hour to rejuvenate my youthful glow? If only.

Alas, the never-ending desire for flawless skin free of lines, creases, furrowed brows will always be prevalent in my own everyday narrative when I greet my face in the morning and clean it at night. I’m not alone in this struggle as women everywhere are echoing these sentiments. A study published in 2017 from Reuters, stated that “the Global Anti-Aging Market was worth $250 billion in 2016 and is estimated to reach $331.41 billion by 2021.” Our skin is our identity, yet we disguise its truth with lotions, potions, fillers and enhancers. Why?

I will be the first one to admit that I am bamboozled by the beauty industry; my makeup drawer is an embarrassment, my Sephora buyer status is VIB (it could be worse), and I’ve contemplated many times on getting a little prick here and there to eliminate a line or two. I’m a sucker, the biggest sucker, for concoctions that promise beauty in the form of perfect youthful skin. But aren’t we all in search of that one product that defies time by tricking others, and ourselves, that we are untouchable from the signs of aging?

Maybe one day I’ll try Botox, or maybe I’ll simply accept fate and appreciate the slow process of my body changing over time; that these lines slowly creeping on my face are merely lines celebrating smiles and contemplative thoughts over a lifetime. Easier said than done, amiright?

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Last Christmas I asked for a Fitbit, and was generously gifted one by my significant other. I wanted one for the same reason every other Fitbit user has one, to track my daily steps, which to my horror, was/is quite pitiful. I’m not lazy, per se, I just work a 9-to-5 desk job and in the evenings I just want to read, eat, watch T.V., and sleep. However, since rocking this super fashionable rubber step tracker, I have felt accountable to the number that mocks me daily; sometimes it reads 10,000 steps other days it reads 3.5K steps. Needless to say, I have started to walk more to show that number who’s boss.

This act of walking would make me look less creepy, say if I was walking a dog, or with someone else, but nope, I walk on, and on these walks, I am even more of a creep as I house shop. You know the act because you do it to: You go for a Sunday drive to look at houses; you check out the nearby open house, not because you want to buy it, but because you want to see what’s inside; and you, like me on these evening walks, glimpse inside windows if the curtains are open and the lights are on.

That is what I do on my Fitbit-10K-a-day walks: I house shop. I unplug from my phone, and from other distractions, and tune in to the stories untold by the houses I pass. I am intrigued by the story every house has, its past and its present. Who lives in it now, and what do they do, but most importantly, what does it look like inside? I have taken it one step further and added careers to the owners of these homes. For example, on one of the streets I frequent I am positive a witch (obviously there has to be one) lives in the house on the corner with the magical turret overlooking the neighbourhood and the windows that are never open. I met her once as she was sweeping her stoop while a grey cat, that wasn’t hers – she mentioned this fact twice – circled her legs purring. We had a nice, albeit brief chitchat. Continue north, and we’ll meet a bookseller, I know this because there are bookshelves that are overflowing with books in the living room and the front foyer, and there’s even a bookshelf on the front porch – I often wonder if the mail-person sometimes grabs a book while delivering the mail. The bookseller’s neighbour is a doctor, while a graphic designer, a drifter, and retired elementary school teacher live in the Tudor-style home turned apartment across the street. Eventually I’ll end up back at my house and wonder if people think the same thing as they pass my home: Are they curious about the lives and the stories being lived in this little old house of mine? Maybe.

After all, it is human nature to be intrigued by the lives of others. If we weren’t, our media landscape, the outlets that willingly allow users to invite people into their lives via stories, tweets and posts, would look a lot different, possibly be non-existent. Memoirs, biographies, epistolary novels (I love books that are narrated through letters or diary entries, it’s like I’m participating in the secret), would never be written, and many documentaries would be left untold. So, my curiosity for the lives of others wagers on one tracked step at a time.