Apparently it takes me 5 years and 3 apartments to finally ovary up and get rid of my Ex Box.
I’d gotten rid of other things incrementally, but this was the greeting cards, and I am a sucker for a greeting card.
I’m still crying, but it’s done.
I am woman. Roar, etc.
*sniff* Shut up.
I’m unpacking while the cable guy is here, and now that I’ve happened upon the “nightstand” bag, it occurs to me that I could probably at least negotiate an FXX/HGTV upgrade…
So, I haven’t mentioned that I’m moving again, probably in about 2 weeks. The rent in my generic, cookie-cutter apartment complex is going up to an amount that’s basically a mortgage. I COULD pay it, but decided to go see what else I could get for that amount or less.
Turns out, I can get the same amount of space but WAY cuter, a more walkable neighborhood, better food options, and closer to everyone I love, for about $400 less a month.
I made lists. I did math. I considered all my life factors and made a grownup decision. When I talked to my therapist, she told me it sounds like the perfect choice for everything I’ve said is important to me, including my budget and mental health.
NO one in my family is happy for me. Everyone got some shit to say.
Today my grandfather offered to let me move in with him, basically rent free, saying my new rent is “still a lot of money,” and my dad chimed in and said, “Yeah, can you imagine putting that amount in the bank every month? After 5 years you’d have, what, $60,000?”
Um…$60,000 for WHAT, exactly? My retirement to an institution because I haven’t had sex in 5 years and have gone insane living with a 90-year-old man who watches home shopping at full volume all day and lectures me about my sodium intake?
It’s a VERY sweet offer, honestly. I’m incredibly grateful. If I am ever in any form of dire life straits, obviously this would be a lifesaver. (Speaking of which, I’m not a total asshole — Granddad doesn’t need live-in help; his health is probably better than mine.)
But I know my family, and this is a goddamn trap. I love my grandfather, but dude IS the patriarchy. I’ve lived alone for 5 years, sir, sometimes unemployed, and the beauty of that particular soul crush is, you learn to fucking handle your bid-ness. I don’t know what kind of helpless, broke-ass princess they think they’ve raised, but I ain’t havin’ it.
I am going to live alone, and walk around naked, and stay up too late, and binge watch My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on weekends, and hopefully have noisy, raucous sex followed by salt-laden Indian takeout at the first available opportunity.
NOW. If you’ll please excuse me, I gotta go throw my hands up at Destiny’s Child.
Self Improvement Phase 1: Haircut, hair color, mani-pedi, sundress. DONE. Holy shit, I KNEW there was a real woman here somewhere! I am exhausted. But pretty. *preen*
Phase 2: New dwelling. Check!
Phase 3: PROFIT! Wait, no… That’s not it… Phase 3: Vacation! See y’all soon! ❤
The Go-Go's – Vacation from Dan Hunter on Vimeo.
When I told a coworker I’d hired movers for the first time, she jokingly said, “Oh, you hired husbands! Good for you!”
I did hire husbands, and it’s exactly the relationship I wanted: Two big, strong men to service me for a few hours and then get the hell out.
(We’ll just gloss over the whole “paying them” thing. That’s where my metaphor gets a little gross.)
I’ve stopped calling it decluttering at this point. I’m a writer, goddammit — these are “life revisions.” I’m deleting the parts of my story that don’t work, expanding and carefully editing the parts that do.
Remember when I was Slut Singleton? My email and cell phone no longer do. (OK, yeah, my brain totally still does, but I’m working on it.)
Sad Singleton apartment? I won’t let the door hit me.
Couch of Horrible Life Choices (AKA the whorecouch)? Out by the dumpster.
Lingerie I wore when making said bad life choices? Let’s call it what it was: Trash. Not the good lingerie, don’t be silly. Bad decisions got made in $12 Target shit…and also a $6 super-clearance dress from JCPenney. (Don’t judge.) I threw that out, too.
I’d throw out the mattress, but I think that was just ONE bad decision, and I can’t afford to buy a couch AND a mattress. I’m clearing my brain, not my bank account. Though I did order new sheets and a new mattress pad. That should cover the bad bed juju.
Oh…and I guess I should replace that bathmat. (Ahem… Shut up.)
P.S. I just have one more post about clutter/moving after this, and then I’m done, I promise.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. It involves feelings and mental health, and it’s not really funny-ha-ha. It’s long, and navel-gazey even for me. I promise to be back with snark in the morning, I just need this out of my brain.
I’m going to try to fix whatever this funk is I’ve been in. I’ll start with diet and exercise (and a vacation — thank you, lord baby Jesus), but I’m also going to see a doctor, because I’m not above knocking back some Prozac or whatever if need be. I think the fact that I recognize something is wrong and can fathom taking steps to fix it is a step up from this time last year, when I refused to see a therapist because it was just too much of a hassle to get dressed and pay to explain my “problems” to a stranger. I’m not hating on therapy, I just think my problems are stupid… which I understand is a problem.
You know how you can be over-tired and drive yourself home, and you GET home, but you can’t really remember doing it? That’s how I’ve spent much of the past 18 months — just sort of on auto-pilot and doing whatever NEEDS to be done, but zoning out on the couch or online at every available opportunity. I kept thinking that as long as I could put on the Person costume when I needed to, as long as I could get up, go to work, and see my friends and family, that I was fine. That’s actually what my sister said when I told her I thought something might be wrong — “You’re fine. You’re not CRAZY until you don’t shower, and every time I see you, you smell just fine.” So… that’s the “nurture” I’m coming from here.
I still think like that, to a degree. I know DEPRESSION can get to where you skip work. But, um… I’ve sort of done that. I’ve definitely taken sick days for PMS. In my defense, that’s WHY there are sick days — I really do think the way certain lines of work are set up, how are you NOT supposed to take the “I can’t even” day?
Also, I feel incredibly guilty being a middle-class white woman claiming to be depressed. “Oh, boo-hoo, you’re SAD? What’s next, an Eat Pray Love trip? Go fuck yourself, go to work.” (See?)
I’ve also been noticing a lot more my complete lack of focus. Example: I’m at work right now. I have work to do, but there’s email, and Facebook, and I have to write about my feeeeeeeeelings here, and there are baby goats prancing in pajamas on YouTube, and BAH! We joke about this in my family — we say “Squirrel!” like the dog from Up! — but it can get genuinely overpowering, like I can’t focus when I need to. I feel like this is related to the “I can’t even,” because I also can’t focus on, like, clocks and getting my ass out of bed on time. Who the hell wants to get out of bed and go on the “Squirrel!” tour? And then when I get home, Christ, who wants to think about anything ELSE? Give me takeout and TV, I’m exhausted!
The shift to spring/summer, the purging of stuff, and preparing to move to a new apartment are definitely helping, but it’s still been kind a semi-conscious existence, and sometimes the smallest things are just absurdly overwhelming, especially when my hormones kick in. Tonight I actually considered having the nice delivery man bring me new pizza so I wouldn’t have to get off the couch and re-heat the leftover pizza I had delivered when I couldn’t get off the couch last night. I didn’t, only because the idea of smiling and saying “thank you” to the delivery guy seemed like more of a hassle than re-heating pizza. (And, let’s be honest, by “re-heating pizza,” I mean, “eating it cold from the box on the living room floor while I watch Easy A for the 57th time.”)
There’ve been elements of all this my whole life. When I was younger, though, they didn’t have diagnoses, so I was just “lazy, antisocial, and flaky.” So I’m trying to decide how much of that is just ME as a person vs. something I might actually need help with. And obviously there’ve been a shit-ton of recent life changes that likely brought out the worst of things.
I’ve been blaming PMS, but I’m pretty sure when you’re moody and tired for most of EVERY month, that’s probably something that needs tending.
Or you’re just an asshole.
Here’s hoping I’m not an asshole.
P.S. Post title taken from “Break Me Open” by the glorious Anna Nalick:
Ah, the great moment of reckoning in any packing/decluttering mission: “Do I expect to get laid any time between moving day and October, when this box of condoms expires?”
Tossing ’em. Not SO much because I don’t anticipate getting any, more because I never want to be reaching for a condom only to find myself cockblocked by the passage of time.
This is from a Tumblr I follow, and YES.
“What IS all this stuff and who put it here?”
“You live by yourself, dummy. YOU put it here.”
“That’s absurd. It was gnomes. Hoarder gnomes. Sneaky little fuckers.”
As I start looking for a new apartment and decluttering my current one, this scene keeps coming back to me.
This apartment was not a good place for me. It does not represent a lot of happy memories. I’m looking forward to starting over in a new place that might hold better juju.
Smug Singleton 