It’s a Relief to be a Renter

Has Minimalism become owning only easily replaceable gadgets?

I, too, am in my fifties. (Why don’t I feel differently to what I did when 17?)

Why? Why? Why don’t I feel fundamentally different from when I was 17?

I, too, rent in Frederiksberg.

I managed to pay top dollar for my co-op apartments and sell in the slump.

I, too, owned a co-op apartment — on two occasions — getting into the market at its peak and getting out five minutes before the miracle upturn. Twice.

My ex-husband lives in our co-op now.

My ex-husband lives in the co-op now and pays around two thousand kroner per month in rent! Two thousand! In Frederiksberg. Yes, kroner! ($300). He paid off the down payment real fast. Now it’s worth about ten times the original amount.

His investment multiplied.

I find myself in a similar situation to you except for the career success. Ha ha!

My career ain’t nothing to shout about.

My most important possessions are my hiking boots, my bike and my sewing machine. It’s nice to have a camera too.

The most valuable item I own, in monetary terms, is my piano.

You and I are different to many women and men of our generation.

I have no urge to strive for the picket fence, no reverence for suburbia nor the daily drudge of feeding the corporate beast.

I haven’t had a car since I exited the corporate world.

I like Frederiksberg but I miss Nørrebro where I lived when I first moved to Denmark. I was back there earlier today. I miss the life on the street, the local color, the bohemian atmosphere.

I miss Nørrebro

I have three teenage children who have grown up here in Frb.

My children grew up in an apartment

I love living in town.

I grew up in the country, a kilometre away from our nearest neighbour.

Beautiful scenery is no match for the pounding music of the disco in town when you’re a teenager

The ivy rustling in the inky darkness, the moths beating their wings against the window, the 200-year-old dwelling creaking; the wooden kitchen chairs exploding with cracks that echoed throughout the house as they contracted in the cool of the night on the stone floor after the fire went out — these deafening interruptions of the dark silence of my childhood frightened me.

The nocturnal rustling of the ivy was terrifying Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev on Unsplash

I enjoy living in an apartment building. There are fewer people walking on the stairs since they moved the post boxes to the main door tho’.

Our personal postboxes have been moved to the street door so there are fewer people walking up and down. Photo by Andersen Jensen on Unsplash

The clientele in my walk-up is too staid for late-night shenanigans.

We stayed at home most of the time, even before corona.

It’s a comfort to hear people moving around, their voices, their lovemaking — we used to have a screamer in our stairwell once. I didn’t even notice until my son pointed it out in horror.

Earlier today I heard someone drilling in the apartment next door. I hear a hammer even as I write and the faraway cries of children playing.

I enjoy hearing the comforting sounds of people around me, drilling, hammering, children playing. Photo by Devon Wilson on Unsplash

I like being near the shops. There’s nothing worse than forgetting something when you’re halfway home (on foot) from the faraway kiosk in the country.

There was a country kiosk about a kilometre away where you could get bread, butter and cigarettes. This was the seventies. Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

I attributed my disdain for the rat-race to living in a family house all my life. My father was offered a quarter of a million pounds for his farm back in the seventies. I wished he had taken it. He couldn’t know then he had only ten years left to live. We could’ve travelled the world together in relative luxury for ten years!

Purchasing real estate always seemed an unnecessary burden so the coop system here was a middle way. I wanted to be free.

The way things are turning out with Corona, it’s a relief to be a renter.