I have been wondering lately how someone, in this case me, could become an entirely new creation and still be exactly the same in some aspects of a life. I am not sure if my ambivalence is a good thing or not, but it certainly is part of this process of not being the doormat that I have been for the past far-too-many decades.
I was having lunch with a friend last week and was filling her in on how the whole-and-old hundred days project went, still going actually. She is not that close of a friend, truth be told, and she is infamous for not being able to keep a damn thing to herself, much less a confidence, so I do not share anything of a sensitive nature, nothing that exposes my vulnerabilities or needs or any of that heartfelt crap. I suspect that we all have a friend like that who wants to hear all about your life and then uses it to foster her own lagging self-esteem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know how judgmental that is, but you can only have your trust fucked with so many times before you simply have to stop trusting some people. They do not deserve to be trusted or to have access to the more precious parts of your life and the sooner you come to that understanding and just cut them off, the better everyone will be, even the blabber-mouth. And, those of you who suck away at your friends, drawing the last bit of marrow from their bones, you know exactly who you are. Bunch of wonking psychic vampires.
However, vampires aside, I really have been spending time working on this whole thing. I have been looking for a new place to live. You cannot believe how disheartening it is to use up your days in an effort to find a place to call your own, where you can be safe and sleep easily and come and go when you want and maybe even play some damn music once in a while. So, anyway, I have been looking for longer than a month now and I am pretty much screwed. The only places that I found within my budget are kind of scary. I can manage with an old building that needs lots of cleaning and I can change a lock if I need to, but there is nothing that I can do about windows that do not close properly or the people who hang out in the joint who do not even live there and all that sort of thing. I swear, some of the places made where I live now seem like the safest place in the Universe. I swear.
When I realized that I was finding nothing in my price range, I made contact with a couple of the rental agencies in the town where I will be living. Three of them were really nice and gave me information and sent me out to look at a bunch of apartments. They were not fabulous or anything, but I know that fabulous is out of my reach. Unfortunately, none of those apartments were within the parameters of my budget. Yeah, the basic rent was, but every single one did not include heating and one did not include water usage. I mean, I thought that every apartment included water, but I was wrong. Many of them did not have appliances.
The fourth rental agent told me, upfront, that I was unlikely to be able to afford a decent and safe apartment at the rate that I can pay. She sent me to a few buildings, that were not part of her listings, but where she knew that there were always apartments or rooms to rent in them and shared with me that I probably would not like living in any of them. She was right.
I do not have insanely lavish or unreasonable requirements for a place to live. I need to feel safe, but it is not essential that everyone who lives in the building be law-abiding. What other people do is not my business. It would be nice to come and go from the place with safety, especially in the dark, you know? I do not need anything fancy, no new appliances or even a fairly modern environment. I would like to visit an apartment and not see roaches or mice scurrying away, worse is when the mouse in one place just sat and looked at me whilst the landlord told me not to worry, that as long as I kept everything in the refrigerator I would be fine. And, yes, that apartment did have a refrigerator, but it was a fright.
Someone who truly cares about me recommended a film to me and I sort of like it, but decided to read the novel from which is was made to have a better idea of the content and flow of the story. It was about a woman who suddenly leaves her marriage and goes off, with a small bag of stuff and her first retirement check. It was, the check, somewhere around four hundred dollars, that she used that make a new life for herself and to find an apartment that cost only fifty dollars a month. Clearly, not a new book.
She makes her way and discovers that the neighborhoods around her have fabulous trash and spends part of her days making the rounds, as it were, finding the things she needs in order to have the things she needs. She makes acquaintances, but no real friends, and meets a man who cooks for her. They also have a lot of sex, which I totally can get behind, you know? The short story of this story is that she does without and does well, but the man with whom she eventually ends up is well-meaning in the context of his life, but is not a particularly nice person and she has to compromise herself in order to be with him, and not in good ways. You know, your traditional happy ending, but she is not any better off in the end. Oh, yeah, sure, she comes to an understanding of what is important to her, but she chooses to spend her new and hard-won freedom with someone who does not deserve her. What kind of a fucking happy ending is that supposed to be? Where is the pay-off, the reward, for the sacrifices that she has made. Seriously. I would love to know how trading one piece of crap situation for another, although different yet still crap buffet kind of a situation is an improvement. In what universe does that make sense?
So, then, I took a break from looking for an apartment that I can afford and spent the last two days of last week looking at apartments that I cannot afford. I am not certain why I thought that was a good idea, but I did, and I did find some really nice locations. They were not amazing by any standards, but they are still not available to me. Which brings me to today, Mother's Day. I know that I am jumping all over the damn place here, but this is my life these days. So, anyway, I do not need to be the center of the Universe, but it would be nice if someone had wished me a nice day. You know? My daughter got busy and forgot, which is fine because she has those wonderful children and they and her husband are treating her to a day of adoration.
I called her and we had a nice chat and I heard one of the babies ask about when she was going to open her box of chocolate and when she replied that she would do it later, he, in all of his three-year-old helpfulness and love of all things sweet, creamy and melty, told her that he would put the box "right here, next to your soda." Her youngest was all excited because she got cards and he just loves cards. They are the most wonderful boys and I am a total fool for them and their parents. No problems, no worries, just more love and fun than anyone deserves to have. We talked a bit more and then wished each other the best and I got dressed and went to the drug store and bought myself a box of chocolates. It was a small box and I, over the course of the day, have eaten every one of them.
In the divesting I found one of those metal shelving things and I put it together today so that I could reorganize my studio and it was not until I was nearly finished that I realized that my plans are to not be here much longer, certainly not long enough to make real use of the newly organized (which I have not completed yet) studio. And, I just sat there and looked around at my easel and all the materials and realized that little of this stuff can go with me when I actually go. Maybe it is some kind of residue from looking at dozens of terrible apartments and rooms, but I sort of forgot for a few hours that I am trying to get out of here.
And, I realized that I do not want to leave. Even though it is difficult here and there are times when it is not all that safe, I know this place and its creatures. If I pay attention, I can keep from rattling the cages. If I stay here I have all my stuff, the art and the loom and my clay studio. I have my cats and a car to use. I get to garden a bit and have some money to lunch and have coffee with my friends. I get to volunteer at my amazing job and, oh gosh, so much more. If I leave I have pretty much my clothes and sewing machine and all that crap.
Is it selfish that I want more than that? What happens if I leave and it is all worse?
I have all of these parts of my life that cannot reconcile with one another. I know what I want, what I need, but I fear that I am too fearful to go out and find it. It seems too risky. I cannot count on a happy ending. It shames me to admit this, but I want a damn happy ending, dammit. I do . I really do. I know that that is not available to me here, but is it really is available to me out there, wherever the hell 'out there' might be?
There is the good, the bad, the not so horrible and the really terrible. I feel like I am wandering around in the dark and there are all of these tiny lights around me. They blink on and off at whatever pace or schedule or timetable or mood that strikes them. Sometimes, when the wee light shines it gives me hope for a peaceful and calm life. Sometimes that light serves as the illumination that reveals the brooding shadows that might devour me if I do not keep careful watch. I reach out and try to bring the lights together and they just slip through my fingers.
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