ThePacificBeach.com

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 but very popular at the time) 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! It was terrifying. 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 though. 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 when 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 a future blog post.