Wednesday.
I've been noticing the week has grown longer since the couch-surfing has stopped. It's no longer a blur of days and apartments, no longer a haze of couches and futons that I run through like I'm marathoning a flipbook. No going out to dinner every night with someone else.
Suddenly slow.
Suddenly, my time is my own.
The apartment is loud. This is what happens when you move in across the street from one of the most popular bars in the area. I sleep with earplugs in, and it's fine. My mother and I are going to be sewing some heavy, soundproofing curtains in the next few weeks.
Things are strange.
Walking into my apartment feels like I'm walking into a hotel. Temporary. Storage space for my belongings and, oh looks, there's a bed. Score. I always wanted a place to sleep.
I told GV8 the other night, I don't know when it's going to sink in. I don't know when I'm going to believe that I am there. That I am there for at least a year. That it is my own space. That I can take care of myself. That things aren't somehow going to magically change and I'll be back, living with my parents and going to school full-time like I dreamed of doing.
I don't feel safe there. So many people. Bad locks that GV8 will be fixing this weekend. Old building. Thin windows. It feels like the boundary that is supposed to be separating me, my territory, from the rest of the world, is a flimsy thing that can be violated all too easy.
I love my boundaries. I love security. Of having that defined space that no one could possibly enter.
It's not like that here.
It's awkward and open.
I'm not sure what to do about it to make myself feel safe, aside from let GV8 do his security bit. I'm sure he'll do a good job.
It makes me a little panicky, sometimes, to go back to the apartment. Waiting for the time when I will want to go back. When it will be a feeling of relief, and not a feeling of impending doom, or of loneliness. Trapped. Silent and alone.
What do I have to do to accomplish this?
I have some ideas.
Let's ponder the execution of them.
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Slow time is hard for me. Very, very hard. My brain seems to want to spin up into, "All of your friends and exs and everyone else in the world is doing something fun EXCEPT FOR YOU."
ReplyDeleteWhich is, of course, bullshit. But there's no telling my brain, really. Not when it gets like that.
I hope you get to the point where your new home feels like... well... home.
The only thing that can make a place feel safe is when it feels familiar. Even men and women in very unsafe places, like warzones, learn to feel safety in the familiar.
ReplyDeleteThat said, get the new locks. Heck, you can put bars on the windows too, if it makes you sleep better. But really, the anxiety is in you. Bars aren't the answer.
Hunter,
ReplyDeleteIt's getting there. But, yes, the slow times are awkward brain-drifts. Wondering what is going on, what I'm doing, where things are going.
Aldonza,
That was exactly what I needed to hear, and a good ass-kicking at the same time. As soon as I read that, I completely mellowed out.
And now... I feel perfectly fine. At home. Anxiety free.
Still got new locks, though, hehe.