Between Loads
The season of living after what was and before what’s next
🧳 Living Without My Own Space
It’s been an uncomfortable past couple of months. I’m staying with my brother temporarily in Flatbush, and I don’t really have a space to call my own right now. I’m adjusting to his apartment, his routines, his way of living. Most of my belongings are stored in a unit, so I’m constantly aware of what I don’t have access to. Clothes I want to wear. Things that make a place feel familiar. Little comforts I didn’t realize mattered until they were gone. It’s strange knowing your things exist, just not with you.
One of the biggest adjustments has been laundry. There’s no washer or dryer in his apartment or the building, which is typical for old, pre-war walk-ups. At my last place, the laundry was in the basement. I’d walk downstairs, throw a load in, and go about my day. Easy.
🧺 The Mental Load of Laundry
Now, laundry requires planning.
I load everything into a rolling cart, bundle up, and walk 0.1 miles to the nearest laundromat. It doesn’t sound like much, but it feels like a production every time. I work out 4 to 5 times a week. I go into the office 3 days a week. Pajamas. Going-out clothes. Bedding. Towels. You do the math.
Laundry never ends.
I haven’t had to go to a laundromat in a long time, and I find myself more frustrated than I’d like to admit. I have to decide when to do it, how much I can carry, and whether I have enough clean clothes to make it another day. In the winter, it means bundling up, getting dressed, and leaving the apartment when all I want to do is stay inside.
I dread it.
❄️ Breaking the Routine
Normally, I have a system. I put my clothes in the washer, set an alarm, and run home so I don’t have to sit and wait. I come back to move everything into the dryer, take home whatever needs to air dry, set another alarm, and repeat.
Efficient. In and out.
But not today.
It feels like -2 degrees outside, and instead of running back and forth, I take a seat and let myself be there.
🌍 A Room Full of Lives in Motion
The laundromat hums with life.
The owners are Chinese, speaking a dialect I don’t recognize. Not Cantonese. Not Mandarin. A Haitian grandmother instructs her grade-school grandson in Creole, telling him to move this, grab that. A Hispanic mom motions for her teenage daughter to unload multiple dryers, her Spanish sharp and efficient. A young man stands with his pants sagging so low he’s holding them up, talking on the phone while loading a washing machine at the same time. I’m genuinely impressed by his multitasking.
Caribbean aunties and uncles keep feeding clothes into machines. A couple takes their time folding and stacking each piece carefully before loading it into their rolling carts.
The sounds are exactly what you’d expect. Water sloshing back and forth as detergent suds up. Dryers are humming with warm air. A broom hits a plastic dustpan as the owners sweep up used dryer sheets, quarter wrappers, and bits of trash. A sports commentator rambles about football plays in the background. Laundry carts clatter from washer to dryer.
People chat in their native languages. Gentrifiers pop in to drop off bags of clothes.
Sitting there, I realize how much life passes through this one room.
🌱 What the In-Between Teaches You
This is what transition actually looks like.
Not the glossy reinvention. Not the triumphant before-and-after. Just the in-between moments where you adjust to someone else’s rhythm while trying not to lose your own. Where inconvenience forces you to slow down. Where discomfort becomes unavoidable.
Rebuilding is quiet. Sometimes it looks like sitting in a laundromat on a freezing day, letting yourself feel annoyed, letting yourself observe, trusting that this version of life is temporary. Surrounded by strangers, learning patience while your clothes spin in circles.
Even without a space to call mine, I’m still here. Still moving. Still stitching together a sense of home through small, ordinary acts. Laundry doesn’t care who you are or where you’re going. It just asks that you show up, load what you’re carrying, and trust the process long enough to see it through.
Between loads, I’m learning how to be okay with not having it all figured out. And for now, that feels like enough.
Maybe resilience isn’t about pushing through at all.
Maybe it’s about staying present long enough to notice that you already are.