Signing on a new dotted line

{ View of Lower Manhattan from the NYC Harbor during our Pioneer Schooner evening sail  |  August 2012 }

The definition of naiveté: assuming it would be completely fine for us to time the end of our NYC lease to 6 months from when we're eligible for each others' citizenship, because of course we'll be able to work the system of three different governments to apply for and receive permission to live abroad AND prepare for an international move within 180 days.

So very, very foolish, on our part.

All of which to say that my home in Lower Manhattan—where I've lived for 6 years—may no longer be my home come spring. I've lived in the same building the entire time, although I've moved apartments within it twice, and we assumed (again, naive) that if our lease expired before we had the proper paperwork to move, we'd just go month-to-month, which I've done before.

But, I haven't verified that we could do that again, and in the meantime, our building emailed us yesterday to say that our rent was going up 15% a month. So, either we take a gamble and assume all the timing gods will work in our favor and we should ask if it's still possible to do a month-to-month lease for a few months (at the higher price), or realize that it would not be a mistake to assume we'd need another year to sort things out and really prepare ourselves well for an international move so it would make more sense to move somewhere else where we could either pay the same rent, or slightly more—but not 15% more!—for a better apartment.

And, did I mention we have two weeks to decide? And, that in NYC, you have to basically give up your apartment before you find a new one, which means that if we decide not to renew our apartment we'd have to tell them now, but we wouldn't be able to find another apartment until a month or so before it's available, which works out to me being a basketcase and not knowing where I'm going to live for 6 weeks.

Fun!