Everyone has their story. Mine is about an apartment. The subterranean level (which sounds better than “basement level”) of a grand Victorian painted Pepto-Bismol pink in the heart of Alameda, California.

I moved to Alameda—near Oakland in the East Bay—for a few reasons, one being that San Francisco didn’t want me anymore. The money, the tech bros, the gross high-rise studio apartments springing up everywhere, marketing “luxury loft living” to the tune of $4000 a month.

Alameda was quaint. Charming. Cozy. Quirky. It felt how San Francisco used to, with independent shops, boutiques, cafes dotting the main drag. Alameda was far more suburban than the city though, all lawns, driveways, single-family homes.

My landlord, Debbie, owned the pink house. She occupied the first and second floors with her husband, teenage daughter and two large dogs. Debbie loved that house. She spent her days and nights attending to it, repairing things, replacing parts and babying a verdant vegetable garden out back.

My apartment was humble, as most Bay Area apartments are. And it wasn’t perfect. The living room had carpet. The bathroom had pink counters. The view from my bedroom was my neighbor’s trash and recycling bins.

But it was nice. Those “not perfect” things never made me think, “Ugh, I have to live with this.” More like, “Ah! At last, I’m home.” And it really did feel like home, which I can’t say as truth for every place I’ve lived. This apartment loved me back, welcoming me in after long days at work and late nights out.

The day the movers came to pack me up for Chicago, I sat on the kitchen counter with my knees tucked in, an iced Peet’s mocha by my side. It happened so fast, as major life changes do. I wasn’t sad to leave behind a whole lot in San Francisco, but leaving that apartment sucked. Even despite that I was moving to a lovely two-story Colonial in a beautiful neighborhood where trees tower, kids bike and people walk home from the ice cream shop.

Every now and then, my Alameda apartment pops up in my dreams. That’s how I know I miss it. In my dreams, someone else is living there. Debbie remodeled it. The carpet is gone. The bathroom is modern. There are plants everywhere. It’s someone else’s home, and in a weird way, it feels like they’re living the life that was meant for me.